Chuck & Sarah vs Trust
by MyNameIsJeffNImLost
Summary: Something unexpected happened when a ninja broke into Chuck's apartment to steal his computer. Now, is it Team Intersects, with an s?
1. Second Date

_Published December 9, 2019_

A/N: This is another season 1 AU. Things are different than my other season 1 AUs. I mentioned this story idea at the end chapter six of "Chuck & Sarah vs the Email." In a way, it's similar to that one, but with different circumstances and with the relationship progressing a little more cautiously. If you want to read about Chuck and Sarah unable to keep their lips apart less than a day after they meet, read that story. This story will have two people who just met, learning to trust each other after their worlds unexpectedly collide.

The following quote is from a different show, but it's related because Chuck and Sarah are both in this story, so there's no getting in the way of the inevitable.

_Farscape 4.11, "Unrealized Reality": The elasticity of time allows for unrealized realities to remain so. Events are matched closely enough to course they have a way of restructuring themselves to familiar outcomes. If matched closely enough to course, events have a way of restructuring themselves._

Reading that from a fanfic perspective, it means that if a certain two characters are in a story, the inevitable will happen (even if the memories of one are erased, which doesn't happen here.)

Disclaimer: Nobody else owns anything here, so why would I?

Disclaimer 2: No beta. Why would I sucker/obligate/subject anyone into reading this when they didn't want to? However, if you PM me corrections, I'll fix them.

* * *

_**October 1, 2007**_

Standing nervously with his hands in his pockets, Chuck waited on the sidewalk for his "date" to pick him up. Even with the mental quotes around "date," the situation was surreal. Gorgeous, phenomenal Sarah Walker was actually picking him up for the evening. He just hoped he didn't make too much of a fool of himself, realizing it would be easier for everyone to lock him away.

Sure, it wasn't a real date. Sarah was taking Chuck to have the Intersect in his brain tested. However, it's not like he had any recent experience with second dates, not to mention any experience with a second date with the hottest and most bad-ass woman on the planet. He would happily let government scientists run whatever tests on the Intersect in his head so Sarah wouldn't have to go through the same thing. She's the valuable one. He just worked a low-level supervisory job at an electronics store. Her job was to save the world. This was how he could save her.

The first date was memorable, because she was there. That had nothing to do with them dancing while she took out NSA goons. It was amazing even before he disabled a bomb with a computer virus. Simply being in Sarah's presence made it his best date since Stanford. Technically, it wasn't a date either. In many ways it was less of a date than this one. That time, he and Sarah were just getting dinner, getting to know each other, and passing time until they could explain the dual-human Intersect situation to NSA Agent Major John Casey. It didn't lessen the evening, though. The brightness that shined from Sarah's grin and the light in her eyes made him feel like it was the best date ever—if it could be called a date—which it couldn't.

The fact that she could fake something like that really demonstrated her greatness as a spy. They were each simply just getting to know the other human Intersect. Lucky was the guy who got to date her for real.

The morning of their second "date," he discovered that Sarah had a new cover job at the Wienerlicious and that she was his new "cover girlfriend." He felt sorry for her a little. Instead of jumping out of planes, she was stuck spending time with a nerd like him. He liked being a nerd, but that didn't mean it attracted the ladies. The faster he helped the scientists figure out this Intersect computer that was in each of their heads, the faster she could go back to making the world a safer place.

At least until then, he got to spend time with her. From the way she acted, she seemed to genuinely like spending time with him. She had also promised to protect him, including from anything risky that the scientists did to test his brain. His sister, Ellie, would be the expert on brain experiments, but she'd be too protective and would probably freak out if she knew about the computer in his head. Sarah seemed a good protector and advocate for someone who wasn't a brain doctor.

At the end of that second night—their first non-date—when Chuck and Sarah spent the night together on the beach watching the tide, she asked him to trust her. He knew he needed an ally in the spy world, where he was completely out of his element, despite watching all of the Bond films. He didn't think he could have picked a better ally than the other human Intersect.

A black Porsche pulled up. Chuck couldn't believe it. That was not the car of someone working at a food chain that served hot dogs on a stick, but it did seem appropriate for the awesomeness of the driver. Devon would even say so. It did make Chuck feel a twinge of guilt for taking Sarah in a Nerd Herder on their "first date." He supposed it was better that the Buy More company car was destroyed that night, rather than the fine automobile that Sarah was driving.

In the car, Chuck managed to keep himself from staring or babbling. Sarah seemed happy to see him, but he needed to stop reading too much into that.

He was probably more nervous about being close to her than he was on their "first date." That time, he was more nervous about the NSA assassin that was coming to get him than he was being on a date with an unbelievably beautiful woman—not that it was really a date. She said she'd take care of Casey, so he tried to enjoy the evening. He supposed knowing it was not a real date took some pressure off.

Despite the lack of pressure, he kept having to tell himself it wasn't a real date. The dinner and dancing weren't enough to make it feel like a real date. Part of it was his fault. Even though it wasn't a date, he made it more date-like by finding a way to pay, saying the bill and tip were "on his tab." He was the local, so he thought he could try that story. Considering he never had the chance to buy a woman dinner since college, he didn't want to be deprived of the chance, even on a fake date.

He didn't have a tab. Really, he slipped cash to waiter before they ordered. He discreetly told the waiter that if a bill didn't come, he could keep the change as a tip. It ended up being a large tip. From Sarah's narrow-eyed look, he was certain he didn't fool her. She told him that she could put the entire evening on a CIA expense report. With the CIA and the NSA embedded into his life, he was sure they would be paying a lot. That, or they'd leave. This might be his only chance.

This night, his and Sarah's "second date" had less of the stereotypical date elements, so on the surface it seemed even less like a date. Oh the other hand, it was more planned than last time. Also, Sarah had dressed up, though maybe she always looked fantastic. She was all smiles when she saw him.

Of course, she seemed happy to see him because she was a great spy and could project a cover. That wasn't true of all spies. Casey was the NSA's best, and he never seemed happy to see him like Sarah did. Once again, he told himself to stop thinking along those lines. Thoughts like that were going to get him into trouble.

The "second date" was at the Buy More, which reinforced the reality that it wasn't a real date. His workplace was about as unromantic as it could get. Casey was also there, which sucked out any romance that was stuck in the corners.

It was time for Chuck to do his part to get the secrets out of his head, helping Sarah. He hoped there wouldn't be probing.

* * *

Sarah dropped off Chuck at his apartment after the mission/date. The events of the entire night were unexpected. She was planning on carefully avoiding the Intersect test images so she wouldn't flash. She wasn't expecting to flash anyway. That unexpected flash was the second she had ever experienced.

Still sitting in the car, Chuck asked, "And this doctor guy, he can fix me?"

Sarah put on a pleasant face and tried to sound upbeat, even though the message was not. "No. I think they don't understand what happened to us."

Sarah could fathom someone who had been pulled into the spy world wanting to get out. Unlike when she joined, he wasn't a step away from going to prison instead of finishing high school. Sarah didn't really have a choice about being a spy, so she wouldn't call getting the Intersect out of her head "fixing it." It was just a strange consequence of her job. Chuck's words were clearly the words of someone not trying to make a buck off of this situation and of someone not trying to use the situation to his advantage with her.

Chuck started to get out of the car. "Tonight was probably the best/only second date I've been on in years."

Hmm. Sarah was surprised he said that because it hadn't been anything resembling a date. Still, Chuck was a gentleman the whole night. He made her laugh, at least on the inside. She didn't want to lead him on when he wouldn't really want to be with someone like her. Despite that, she was ready for him to make a pass. The pass would have been complete. She figured they'd have to start kissing in greetings and goodbyes for the cover. The idea wasn't unappealing. It wouldn't hurt to start practicing to strengthen their cover in the future.

Chuck squatted at the closed door between them and said through the open window, "Oh, uh, I almost forgot. Dinner tomorrow night with my sister and her boyfriend: Captain Awesome. She really wants to meet you."

Did he just ask her on a real date—one without a mission? Maybe it'd be for the cover, but still… "Oh, ok. Well, that's a good idea."

"Meeting the family's kind of a big step, if our relationship were remotely real."

There was that low self-confidence she was starting to see over and over. Sarah was determined to fix that for the hero of the Burbank Buy More.

Then she realized that dinner at Chuck's would be her first date outside of a mission with someone who wasn't in the CIA. In high school, before her CIA make-over, she wasn't attracting guys. She had grown up breaking the law. She didn't really want anyone to get to know her. Always moving around, she never established relationships, or even friendships. She supposed she had a few dates with marks, but that was for work and some of those men ended up dead hours later. Chuck was under her protection, not a mark. Their relationship was her _job_. That made this dinner with the sister not a real date either, but it was close. Dinner with Chuck's sister didn't have a mission objective like meeting an NSA agent or having a brain test. That was as close to a real date as she could expect. She thought maybe she should count the first two.

"Since this examination thing didn't work out, it looks like you're not getting rid of me easily," Chuck lightly joked.

"Uh, yeah," Sarah managed to say, without expressing too much disappointment and without conveying any happiness that she would see him again at their next almost-date. She wanted to tell him about the rush of the flash, even with the subsequent headache, because he was the only person that could understand. But she didn't want to scare him that there were traitors around. Her job was to keep him out of it, at least for the night.

"Ok. Drive safe." He tapped on the door again in goodbye and left with a smile. Sarah couldn't believe it, but once again, she wanted a goodbye kiss, even on the cheek.

Sarah drove away, heading back to her long-stay hotel. It was nicer than some of the places she had had to stay on missions in the past. It was too green, though.

Early in the evening, before Zarnow started testing Chuck, Sarah flashed on him. Like the first time, she got an almost debilitating headache. She was able to cover, since Zarnow didn't know what a flash reaction looked like. She excused herself to the restroom, and she heard Casey make some sexist comment about it being her time of the month. It worked, though. When the test on Chuck concluded, they handcuffed the scientist who had been selling secrets to the North Koreans. Casey stayed behind for processing.

Chuck performed incredibly well on the test. He flashed a couple dozen times. He complained at the end that he wanted a couple Ibuprofen, only a mild reaction by Sarah's judgement. She wasn't sure she could do what he did. After she flashed on Zarnow, she didn't actually get sick enough that she _had_ to go to the restroom. She could have flashed a few more times, but not nearly as many times as Chuck. She left mainly so Zarnow would have an excuse for her visible reaction. Back at the Farm, she went through torture training. Seeing that many Intersect images would have been worse.

The whole situation really brought home one of the main things that was bothering her about the entire situation. She could tell Graham and Beckman were practically salivating at the prospect of having a trained agent with the Intersect in her brain. They were only held back by theoretical security risks. If she went on a mission and flashed, and that flash debilitated her for a few seconds, it could blow her cover and leave her vulnerable. That would put all of the nation's secrets in jeopardy. They wanted to understand the risks before sending her out on her own.

To them, Chuck presented a fortunate opportunity. They could run experiments on him and see how they affected him before messing with their pristine human Intersect agent.

In Sarah's opinion, Chuck wasn't a good comparison. The tests that they let Zarnow finish proved Chuck's ability to flash was beyond all believed possibility—a lot better than hers. When she flashed on Zarnow, she had to fake being sick so he wouldn't notice. She wasn't that sick, but it was clear that something had happened to anyone paying attention. She couldn't do something like that when at a ball at an embassy. It would blow her cover while Chuck, the untrained civilian, would be fine. He wasn't a good baseline for measuring her.

Sarah had only flashed once all night, and hours later she still had a splitting headache. Chuck flashed around forty times, and while he said he was starting to have a headache, he was still flirting with her in the car on the way home—well, his version of flirting. No bad pick-up lines, slightly self-deprecating humor, and compliments that seemed genuine and made her stomach flip. He wasn't trying to flirt, but it was working—while he was supposedly not feeling well.

Sarah pulled into her hotel's parking area. One of the most surprising things about the evening was not Chuck's flashing ability, but Chuck himself. Thoughts of her curly-haired, cover-boyfriend wouldn't be leaving her as she was trying to go to sleep. Maybe she'd have some good dreams.

Sarah's most used skills were infiltration and neutralization, but looking like she did, she had her fair share of working as a lure. She was very familiar with heavy gazes and pawing from marks. Those marks were the worst people from around the world.

Chuck was not like them. For one thing, he was no longer a mark as he was when they first met. She still found herself a little disappointed there was no goodnight kiss. Their cover was boyfriend and girlfriend. She fully expected him to take advantage of the situation, at least a little. When she went to get him in the home theater room after his test, he didn't even use the opportunity to look at her chest, even though he was sitting eye-level with it, and that was the perfect opportunity.

When she originally tried to take Chuck's computer, wearing an all-black disguise, she easily dispatched both him and Morgan. The way the two of them ended up, she almost thought… No. Chuck wasn't constantly checking her out, but at dinner the other night, he blushed a little whenever she stared into his eyes. He acted differently than every other man who was suddenly dating a beautiful woman. That didn't mean he wasn't interested.

If they were going to be cover-dating a while, she was going to have to work with Chuck and let him know he was allowed to fake some affection. It wouldn't be a lot, but if he kept acting like she was out of his league, it wouldn't be a convincing cover.

Sarah was a little disappointed it was only a cover. Then again, if not for the cover, she wouldn't get to see him at all. She didn't dwell on what that thought meant.

She never cover-dated the same person for any length of time. She'd only had to get close to marks on missions. Chuck was so much more appealing than those people. He was tall, cute, funny, and very smart. If she was honest with herself, whenever she saw him, she wanted to run her fingers through his curls. He genuinely seemed to be a nice guy, and that was the opinion of someone who was great at reading people, if she had to say so herself.

Chuck was very open and honest with her. At one point a few days before, she was a little concerned his openness might make him a security threat, but at the slightest mention that he couldn't tell anyone about the Intersect, he was almost shocked at the suggestion that he would think of _not_ keeping it a secret. He said he was frightened what his overprotective sister would do if she found out. If anything, Chuck probably considered the secrecy of Sarah's human Intersect status to be more important than she did.

Chuck just had to get used to having a girlfriend again. _"Tonight was probably the best/only second date he'd been on in years?_" That made her feel sorry for him. He was a catch, despite how much he belittled his job. He was already the closest thing she had ever had to a friend who wasn't a spy…maybe ever. There wasn't a lot of competition; she wanted a friend like Chuck. She was positive she wouldn't mind spending more time with him. She'd have to break him of his attitude and make him realize that he could be better when she was gone.

Back in her room, she started getting ready for bed. Her thoughts remained on the other human Intersect.

If she helped Chuck realize he was a catch, he could more easily get some woman after she left. Lucky girl. For now, he was just Sarah's assignment.

One thing the night proved was that the higher-ups at the NSA and CIA had no idea what they were doing with respect to the Intersect. The person who in their opinion had the best chance at figuring out how to get the Intersect out Chuck's head had been selling secrets to North Korea? And they just sent him to Chuck? She was really glad she also had an Intersect and could prevent the traitor from getting close to her protectee. Zarnow never found out she had an Intersect. It wouldn't always be that easy.

Chuck might consider her more valuable to protect because she's a human Intersect spy, but he's a civilian, and _she's_ the one who's supposed to protect _him_. He's not just any civilian. In the brief time she's known him, he saved a marriage, boosted the self-esteem of a little girl, and prevent a bomb from killing dozens of people.

A little part of her was glad Zarnow wouldn't be taking the Intersect out of his head. The fact that someone with no training was handling it so well made her a little less scared of it herself. Since Chuck would have the Intersect in his head for the foreseeable future, she'd remain in LA, protecting him. He'd give her confidence she needed from a friend, a friend who had the same thing in his head as she did in hers.

He definitely should not be put at risk to protect her because the entire situation was caused by Bryce and because an Intersect being in her head was her own fault.

* * *

A/N: Oh, no. What did Sarah do? Stay tuned.

In the meantime, Chuck isn't the only one who is spiraling.


	2. First Date

_Published December 10, 2019_

A/N: Sarah has the Intersect? How did it happen, this time? ("Chuck & Sarah vs the Email" for the other time.)

* * *

_**Twelve days before. September 19, 2007**_

Sarah kicked the guy who had helped the traitor in the chest, making him fly against the wall. She was dressed all in black with a hood hiding her face, just in case her mark came home. Neither Chuck nor his little bearded friend were much of a threat.

Odd, based on the signs she picked up at the Buy More earlier that day, she didn't know they went they way. Chuck was nervous, but he seemed into her. Admittedly, that awkward position on the floor could be the result of not being able to move after she took them out. She turned to where she had placed the computer she had been stealing on a shelf. She saw the shelf fall, making the computer crash to the ground and break into a hundred pieces.

Things hadn't been going right for her lately. First Budapest. Then getting associated with her traitor ex, Bryce. If he weren't dead, she'd shoot him herself. Multiple times. She got herself tasked to retrieve what he stole. Then Bryce's accomplice, Chuck, seemed to be playing hard-to-get when she tried to seduce him at the store. To top it off, the computer with the stolen Intersect email was broken.

She started to leave, figuring she'd have to try again at the Buy More to seduce Chuck into a date, something that would be easier without her B & E disguise. With her hand on the doorknob, she heard Chuck, still on the floor, say in a pained voice to no one in particular, "At least I have a backup."

Sarah froze. Chuck had a copy of the Intersect in a form that could easily be sold. She turned back from the door, picked up the golf club that she had disarmed from Morgan, and pressed its putter head to Chuck's face.

"Where is it?"

At first Chuck's face showed fear. To Sarah, he didn't seem like someone who was capable of committing treason. He was too frightened. Then, he tilted his head and expressed a perplexed look. She didn't have a voice changer. He had to have recognized her voice.

At this point it didn't matter. He had a stolen copy of the Intersect. She pulled off her hood, letting her blond hair fly free. From Chuck's reaction, she knew she was right. He had definitely succumb to her charms.

"Sarah," Chuck said with an astonished smile, despite having just been attacked in his home, despite his computer demolished on the floor, and despite his friend unconscious on top of him.

"Where is it?" she forcefully repeated. "The backup."

"I'll get it. Give me a second to get free." He pushed his friend off of him. As Chuck straightened up to his feet, he said, "Huh. You care more about the backup than the computer debris. It wasn't even the most expensive thing in the apartment, and you were locked out of the encrypted hard drive, making it useless to you. I assume this is about the email."

In a threatening manner, Sarah pressed the club head to the soft part of his neck, right under his jaw. She could easily pull it back and let him have it. "How well do you know Bryce Larkin?"

"Bryce Larkin from Connecticut? He was by roommate at Stanford, until my senior year when he framed me to get me kicked out of school so he could steal my girlfriend. I hadn't heard from him in years, until he emailed me out of the blue last night. I assume there was something about that email. It was weird. There was this riddle, and I solved it. Then thousands of images flashed on the screen."

"You saw them?" Sarah asked.

Chuck nodded.

Sarah said, "I worked with Bryce at the CIA. Those images were encoded with secrets."

"They were just weird images. Since Bryce is a spy, you should talk to him," Chuck suggested.

"Bryce is dead. He died sending those secrets to you. I was sent to retrieve them."

Chuck was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I knew it. I told Morgan you were out of my league." Sarah wanted to contest that point. Her criminal past meant no one was in her league, but not the way Chuck meant, and it was not the time to argue that. She raised the metal blade of the club a little, raising his head. "Hey now. No need for that. My computer, which you destroyed—not that I blame you, the shelf should have been hung better—that computer didn't have the email anyway. The email deleted itself after I opened it. My backup hard drive made a copy before I opened the original email. I can give it to you. It'd be nice if you let me copy some personal information off it first, before I give you the entire drive so I don't lose everything. If that email really has top secret information, I don't want anything to do with it. Let me go get it."

Sarah nodded once in permission, and Chuck went back to his room. He retrieved an external drive and a cable. He connected the drive to his Xbox so they could see it on his TV. He attached some sort of keyboard that he retrieved from a spot next to a bunch of controllers against the wall. To Sarah, it looked like he transferred some personal files off the drive, as he pulled up the email with an enormous attachment. She was impressed that a video game system could be used like that. The screen said, "The terrible troll raises his sword."

"What's that mean?" Sarah demanded.

Chuck answered, "It's sort of a password from a text-based adventure game Bryce and I programmed in college. It means the email was meant for me." He typed, "Attack troll with nasty knife." He didn't hit enter.

Sarah mused, "That's too long for a password cracking program to break if it worked on it a couple of years, maybe longer."

Before Chuck hit enter for the phrase, he said, "You probably should look away from this."

"Why?" After Chuck had been so great at the Buy More, then so cooperative about getting the email, she didn't understand why he was suddenly so reluctant.

"Last night, this is what caused all of the pictures to appear."

"Go ahead. We can stop it after I verify that's the correct password."

In retrospect, she should have trusted him more.

"I don't think that's a good idea. It sort of hypnotized me, and I passed out. Morgan woke me the next morning so I wouldn't miss work. Since then, something has been wrong with me. I know things I shouldn't know."

She just needed to verify the Intersect was still there before she left with the wrong thing, like she almost did with the computer. She didn't want to argue. She reached over and pressed enter.

* * *

_**Hours later**_

Sarah slowly woke up with a splitting headache, not opening her eyes immediately. She was on a sofa, half on top of someone next to her. She slowly opened her eyes and saw she had passed out on top of Chuck. He was must have passed out, too. He did warn her, but she didn't expect what happened. She had figured that she could just shut her eyes. Chuck had not been resistant. He had been looking out for her.

As much was she surprisingly liked the smell coming from the guy at her side, she figured she should wake him. "Chuck!" she said harshly. He groaned in response. She understood the feeling.

She supposed that she should get off him. She rolled back to sit at his side. Chuck unconsciously followed so he was half on top of her. "Chuck!" she said more forcefully. Chuck groaned again, and started to push off. When he realized where his hand was, he woke up completely and moved it quickly. "Oh, I'm so sorry," he said it a rush.

Sarah still wasn't fully wake, but Chuck's fumbling apology was sort of cute. In the past, when men tried to cop a feel without her permission, they weren't successful. One ended up with a broken finger. Chuck was accidentally successful in their muddled states, but instead of being proud, he was embarrassed. Sarah got her first good look at Chuck, and he was beat red.

Sarah tried to lighten the mood. "You could at least take me to dinner first, but you didn't even call that card I left." If anything, Chuck turned redder.

"I never meant to… I didn't see…"

Sarah spared him, "It's ok Chuck. If you feel like I do, you had no idea what you were doing. I understand. I also see why warned me about the email. That was nothing like I expected. I don't see how that is supposed to be useful. I feel awful. You were knocked out even though it was the second time for you. That's a horrible way to transfer information. It's ok. I kicked you in the chest. You put your hand on my chest…"

Sarah didn't think it possible, but Chuck got redder. Time to shot teasing and change the subject. "Chuck, you saw those images before. What should I expect?"

Chuck rubbed his hands down his face. "You said this Intersect thing encoded secrets in pictures. There were thousands."

"We now have all of those secrets in our heads. What happened yesterday?" Sarah asked.

Chuck warily said, "I sort of 'flashed' twice when I saw or heard certain things. The first time was when I heard a traffic report on the radio. I somehow knew the cops were in a phased deployment to protect a VIP who arrived in town."

"That's standard for security coverage when officials come to a big city and travel on the expressway. Who's in town?"

"The NATO General —Stanfield —the one who's been on the news. At the Buy More, I saw a news report on the TV wall that was about Stanfield arriving tonight, but I flashed and knew he had secretly already arrived."

"Wow. Did you have physical symptoms?" Sarah asked. "Did anyone notice?"

"No," Chuck answered. "The first time I flashed, I was in the shower and heard the radio. The second time, I was briefing the other Nerd Herders, and they thought I spaced out for a second. No one suspected a thing."

"That's good," Sarah said. "If you try, can you recall anything else? Until I revealed myself last night, you didn't know I'm a CIA agent, which means you didn't know my file when I first met you."

"No. It's seems like I need a stimulus to trigger a flash, and certain details, like how gorgeous you are, aren't in the Intersect," Chuck said. Chuck's hand flew to his mouth. "I'm sorry. You are… But sometimes my mouth runs away…"

Sarah smiled and patted Chuck's hand. Then she frowned. "That's not an effective way to transfer information." She looked over by the front door where she had attacked Chuck and Morgan the night before. "Where's Morgan?"

Chuck said, "I don't know. Wait, let me see." He pulled out his phone and checked his text messages. "Yes. Here it is." He showed Sarah a message on his phone. It said, "Way to Go!" and had a picture of Sarah draped over Chuck.

Sarah had to admit that looked like something it wasn't. She remarked, "He didn't say anything about what I was wearing or the destroyed computer."

Chuck said, "That's Morgan. He's ignoring the computer because my sister, Ellie, had him hang that shelf when we moved in to keep him out of the way. He doesn't want to be blamed, and he's mentally blocked it out. With you… Morgan's just that way. He often ignores the obvious to fit his misguided view. For example, Morgan and I both went stag to high school prom, but don't tell him that. He took Ellie's pillow. The way he sees it, he didn't go stag. Right before we got here, he was on me for not calling you. Not knowing who you were, he actually thought I had a chance with you. Now he's happy for me since he saw us on the couch together and that we were…together. No really together, but you hadn't left."

Why would Sarah leave if Chuck wasn't getting the the way of her mission? More important question: "Is there any chance he downloaded the Intersect into his head?"

Chuck bought up a another text message. It said, "How'd you get Vicki Vale to play Xbox? What game uses a keyboard? The TV is blank."

"What happened to the Intersect?" Sarah asked.

Chuck checked the Xbox computer. "It's deleted itself, again. The Xbox runs a Windows core, which is why I could see emails on it. I hacked it a few months ago to give us another computer that we could use on this TV. However, it means the email could delete itself, the same way it did on my desktop."

Sarah took Chuck's hands and said, "That means the only copies of the Intersect are in our heads."

They stayed quiet for a moment and looked down at their hands. Chuck started to pull away, but Sarah gripped harder and smiled. Whatever came next, they were in it together.

After another moment, Chuck said, "I have to go to work. That's allowed, right?"

She made the decision she needed to start trusting him. He went to work yesterday with the Intersect in his head, and the world didn't end. "Yes. You can go to the Buy More, but don't go on any off-site installs. I need to call this in." She pulled a small tracker out of her pocket and turned it on. "Keep this with you, so I can always find you. I'll text you the address for where I've been staying. You've already felt me up." She paused as Chuck blushed, yet again. "You can take me to dinner so we get to know each other." She didn't have much of a sense of humor, but she tried for funny. "I'm not just some person that broke into your home and kicked you across the room."

Chuck laughed, even though it wasn't _that_ funny. She tried to make it funnier. "I liked your way of touching me more than you probably liked how I touched you."

That didn't work. Chuck was embarrassed again. She stopped trying to me funny and went for more serious. "I don't know what my orders will be, but I'm pretty sure we're going to be spending a lot more time together."

With amazement, Chuck asked about the plan she proposed earlier. "You want to go out with me?"

Sarah said, "I'm new to town, so I'd love for you to show me around. You've had this Intersect a lot longer than I have, and you've flashed, which I haven't done. I'd like to find out more from the world's expert."

Chuck nervously laughed. "Well, when you put it that way, I'd be happy to help."

Sarah grinned and got up to leave. She wasn't sure about the word 'flash,' but at least she wasn't Carina and could use the word without innuendo. Although sometimes, Carina wasn't using innuendo.

She pointed to the computer. Chuck said, "Don't worry. I've got that. I deal with broken computers all of the time. I want to clean that up before my sister and her boyfriend get home from their night shifts at the hospital, so I don't want to leave it for tonight. It's also what we Bartowskis do when we are nervous. We clean. It won't talk long."

"Alright." At the door, Sarah stopped. "It's strange considering I have a computer in my head, but Chuck, you have been the most surprising thing about this assignment. I came to California thinking you were a traitor working with Bryce. Instead you're a great guy who's just trying to help. I look forward to seeing you tonight. Goodbye, Chuck." She kissed him on the cheek. She'd never admit to the spark she felt because she didn't believe in that sort of thing.

* * *

_**That evening**_

Sarah spent a lot of time getting ready for a "get-to-know-you" dinner, especially considering it wasn't technically a date.

Her boss, Director Langston Graham, told her that Chuck was her asset: his safety, her responsibility. He wasn't sure yet what to do with either the Intersect in a civilian or the one in her. That wasn't the immediate problem, though. The NSA had dispatched Agent/Major John Casey. Sarah knew him only by reputation as a "cold-school killer." Graham had talked to General Beckman in the NSA, but she said Casey was already in LA, had recruited a team, and had gone dark.

Since the Intersect lab was in an NSA facility, Bryce was a CIA agent, and Bryce killed an NSA guard, the NSA wasn't very trusting of the CIA. It was up to Sarah to make sure things didn't get worse. After a successful de-escalation, both agencies would work together to decide what to do next.

Meanwhile, Sarah would act as if nothing was amiss and go have a non-date dinner with the great guy she had recently met.

Dinner was wonderful, despite the mariachi band. The food was excellent, and Chuck was charming without even trying. Before dessert, she was wishing it was a real date.

Little did she know, dancing, which seemed a harmless way to blow off steam, led to a confrontation with Casey's squad. Then, she had her first flash. She didn't flash when Chuck did. She didn't flash because he actually knew more about the situation than she did. Trying to recount his flash, Chuck mentioned seeing a bomber at the Large Mart. That detail combined with the building nearby, triggering her flash. The flashes let them know where to go to stop an assassination attempt that would have killed who knows how many.

Graham had implied that she might not see action for a while with the Intersect in her head. Ignoring the run through the hotel lobby, she didn't, but not for the expected reason. _Chuck_ was the one who disarmed the bomb, using his computer skills—skills not even in the Intersect.

After a successful end to the evening, she didn't celebrate with Chuck in the adrenaline releasing manner like she used to with Bryce. She was staying professional, though truth-be-told, the rush of a flash made her consider being unprofessional. Chuck never made a move, though, which was enough to hold her back. Instead, they went to the beach and watched the tide until sunrise, leaning together. It was more special to her than any other time she had decompressed after a mission.

* * *

_**After the second "date" — the "Intersect test" one**_

Driving away from Chuck's apartment, Sarah felt a tiny twang of disappointment. For a second time, it was not a date. Chuck counted it as one, despite the lack of ambiance, and part of her wished it was one. Two dates, but no goodnight kiss. Cover-dating a good guy was going to be harder than she thought.

* * *

A/N: The higher-ups see Chuck as a disposable test subject with no need to throw him into the field. Sarah wouldn't mind a kiss. Chuck just can't believe his luck.

If you want them to move faster, hang in there. Alternatively, read "Chuck & Sarah vs the Email," then come back here, and hang in there. If you want them to move slower…why?


	3. When You Can't Tango

_Published December 11, 2019_

A/N: Chuck's not needed in the field because they have another human Intersect. Casey and Sarah just need to keep the human Intersect civilian from getting into trouble.

When dancing a tango, people try to look like they are ignoring their partners, while they are moving passionately with them.

* * *

_**A week later**_

Sarah approached the security front desk of the Culver City office building. On the inside, she was calm, but that wasn't the persona the mission needed her to convey. She frantically said to the night guard, "I left my purse." She quietly added, "which has tampons." She continued in a normal tone of voice, "I also left my wallet, my ID badge, and a file with a bunch of papers I need to review tonight. Otherwise, I'd just go to the store."

The guy at the front desk was a little flustered. "Right. I have to check you in. Let me pull you up on the computer. What's your name?"

"Sarah Carmichael."

* * *

_**That morning**_

Chuck walked to the Wienerlicous and saw Sarah greet him with a smile. He liked to think she had a smile that changed for him. It started with a pleasant smile that would greet anyone entering the food establishment. Then it switched to a full brilliant expression of teeth, with the smile extending through her eyes. It couldn't be for him, though. She had to just be happy the lunch rush wasn't starting early.

"Hi, Sarah."

"Hi, Chuck! I'd offer you a corn dog, but just between us, I don't trust the chef not to burn it. This is early for your lunch, though, so I recommend you wait until you are hungry, then go somewhere else with better food."

"Thanks for the tip. This is actually my lunch break, even though it's barely after 10:30. We stagger our breaks. There's no official schedule, but this time, I took the early time slot so I could come here. I don't need food. Morgan's not working today, so I packed a lunch, knowing that he wouldn't be upset I didn't pack Ellie's leftovers for him."

"So with your friend gone, having lunch with your cover girlfriend is your second choice?" Sarah asked with a hint of teasing. "Why did you volunteer for the early time?"

"I'm here to make sure you're ok. I saw Casey come in last night, and he didn't say anything this morning, so I assume you're all right." It had nothing to do with the fact that he just wanted to gaze upon his girlfriend, even if she was only a cover-girlfriend.

"No problems," Sarah confirmed. "Don't tell me. You watched out your window for Casey to come home."

He was caught, but he didn't have to admit it. Chuck let out of noise of exaggerated protest. "I never said I did that. I just happened to see him in the courtyard."

"By lucky timing."

Chuck didn't say anything, but he knew he wasn't hiding a thing.

"At least you didn't accost him entering his home."

"I know better than that," Chuck insisted. It had taken a lot of restraint to stay in his room. "Were you successful? I'm sure you were. If you weren't, I assume Casey would have been more surly than usual, though it's sometimes hard to tell."

"Mission accomplished," Sarah confirmed.

"You caught La Ciudad?" Of course she did, but he didn't want to make bad assumptions about a spy mission.

"Yes."

"Did you flash?"

Sarah looked down and twisted her her mouth. "Not on La Ciudad. I identified an MI-6 agent who has been tracking her and misinterpreted the flash as a positive identification. That led to a stand-off. Casey backed me up, and we settled the misunderstanding. We identified La Ciudad buying the painting and apprehended her after the auction. That was the MI-6's plan all along. It would have been nice if they had worked with us instead of going around our country pointing guns at people. I normally do that, so I understand to a point, but they are our allies."

"Her? Oh, I guess that makes sense with the name La Ciudad. Words in Spanish are gendered, and Ciudad is feminine. Well, I'm glad you're ok. I'd hate to be the only Intersect. I'm not trained to be a spy, so it's better off that I stayed behind." He was practically regurgitating the message he had been given the day before.

Sarah said, "About that. The scientist who gave you that test last week was a traitor. I flashed on him and found out that he had been selling secrets to North Korea. We arrested him that night."

"That great!" Chuck exclaimed. "You're catching bad people everywhere, since you're a real spy with the Intersect."

"The Intersect project has been infiltrated heavily. We still don't know why Bryce destroyed the original Intersect computer. We can't trust any more people on this until they have been thoroughly vetted. That means we're stuck with this thing in our heads for a while."

Chuck countered, "I wouldn't put it that way. You're stuck with me, but I'm sure the big wigs are thrilled to have a spy with the Intersect." Chuck was used to things not going well. The situation wasn't too bad for him, as long as he had Sarah.

"Initially, yes. They don't want me on missions overseas with all of the Intersect secrets in my head until they know more about how it works. Last night, I misinterpreted a flash, and it almost blew the whole mission. The brass are thrilled we captured La Ciudad and aren't concerned enough about the flash almost blowing the whole thing. At least they aren't as concerned as I am. They do still have a few reservations. They want to run tests on you, but I don't think it's right for you to be a guinea pig when you didn't ask for any of this," Sarah finished with conviction.

"I want to help," Chuck asserted.

"If it was actually helping, that'd be great. However, I'm convinced they don't know what they're doing. I told them no random experimentation from potential traitors. Considering my misleading flash, I have agreed to show you photos and videos from missions to see what you flash on. I'm also going to start recording audio, just in case. Last night I didn't flash on any audio, like you did with that traffic report, but you never know. You might flash on something else, so it'd probably still be a good idea to have you listen."

"Why would I flash on something you didn't?" Chuck asked. "We downloaded the same Intersect."

"We don't know enough about how the Intersect works to know what you might flash on. The night of your test, I self-administered the same test you took. You flashed on forty images with no ill effect."

"I had a headache," Chuck admitted.

Sarah said, "In the same amount of time, I flashed on twenty images, before having to take a break. I didn't flash on three which you flashed on. I eventually flashed on eighteen of the remaining twenty, but I felt horrible afterwards. They supply all agents with heavy-dosage pain-killers. I used them, and that's why I was late to work the next day. I used our date as an excuse. I hope you don't mind."

Why would he mind a beautiful woman saying she was slow the next date because of a date going long? He wasn't sure it was believable, but this was a low-level job. Stories like that worked, even with him as the so-called date. He had a bigger concern. "You flashed last night. Are you sure you're ok?"

Sarah put her hand on Chuck's on the counter. "It was only one flash. I'm fine. I'm more concerned that the flash did more harm than good on the mission. I'd like you to look at these." She pulled up an image on her register, an electronic photo from the art auction. Chuck stepped behind the counter to look. The photo was captured from security footage that someone collected. He advanced through the photos. They were taken from several angles.

When Chuck reached one man, he flashed. He said, "I suppose this one is the MI-6 agent. If you hadn't told me you mistook him as La Ciudad, I would have thought he's La Ciudad. His travel pattern matches the known locations of the arms dealer."

He continued to look though the photos. Sarah saw the signs of a flash and asked, "What did you see?"

Chuck showed her the photo that triggered it. Sarah didn't flash. "Who's that?"

Chuck said, "Allan Watterman. I went to Stanford with him." The name caused Sarah to flash.

The last time Chuck was with Sarah when she flashed, he didn't witness anything because he was looking at Casey, the man pointing a gun at him. Chuck thought this flash looked like it hurt, and Sarah was tough. She also started from a better place, looking unbelievable when she wasn't flashing. Chuck was sure his reaction must look horrible to Sarah. He probably looked constipated.

Sarah said, not keeping a little strain out of her voice, "Insider trading and offshore accounts in the Caymans."

"That's what I saw. Seems like you needed to know his name for the Intersect to connect the dots. What do we do now? Arrest him?"

Sarah said, "The secrets in our heads are too valuable to risk on a crime that doesn't jeopardize lives. I'll pass the information along, but honestly, I don't expect the CIA to pursue it too much. What about the other photos?"

Chuck resumed looking through the stack of photos. He noticed, but didn't flash, on two huge men that looked out of place at an art auction. They were security for an attractive woman who was apparently there by herself. On the third image of her, he flashed again.

"Whoa. Ok, she's into some bad stuff. My flash didn't tell me she's La Ciudad, but considering you told me they other man's not La Ciudad, either you were at a bad guy convention or that's her."

Sarah had been looking at Chuck for any reaction and said, "That's the woman who bought the painting. You flashed on her, but I didn't."

"I didn't flash on the first or second picture. See this." He pointed to the scar on her neck. Looking at that caused Sarah to flash. Chuck thought she looked great even having a seizure.

"Ok. I see what you mean. She's done some bad stuff, but nothing to say she's La Ciudad. The scar was the trigger. That means a spy/human Intersect needs to see everything. That's risky because flashing can blow the spy's cover. It'd really be helpful if you were on missions, too. I have the Intersect, but four eyes are better than two."

"But I can't do the jumping and punching as well as you can," Chuck said. "If a car tried to run me over, I'd collapse in fear instead of staring it down and throwing a knife like you did."

"Maybe you could stay in the van and tell me on comms if you flash on anything." Sarah pulled out her cell phone. "I need to call this in." Chuck continued messing around with the strange computer that could be controlled from the cash register screen.

After a minute, Sarah returned to see what Chuck was doing. He was finishing installing a touch screen keyboard. Sarah wanted to ask what Chuck more, when Casey entered the Wienerlicious.

"Am I interrupting a tryst?" the NSA agent asked.

"Of course not, Agent Casey," Sarah said. "Chuck reviewed the photos and flashed three times. I called in a preliminary report to Director Graham. Now, Chuck is… I don't know what Chuck is doing."

Casey cut to the chase. "Chuck, will you be coming back to the store, or do I need to make up some excuse that you're on a support call?"

Chuck didn't look up and continued typing away. "I still have fifteen more minutes, and I'm not hungry, yet. Here…" He typed some more. "There. I've entered a support call into the Buy More system, so I've got another hour. We're doing top secret stuff, so I figure it's ok to use a cover story. I'll need someone to sign a form later."

With surprise, Sarah asked, "You can do that from here?"

Casey repeated the question. "How can you do that from here?"

Chuck didn't stop what he was doing, even though he didn't have permission to do the hack he was attempting. He figured that he'd get it soon enough. They wouldn't want Watterman to get away with it. At least he hoped not. He said, "This register-computer thing is hooked up to the Internet. It's running Unix. Wait a second, let me get this right... " He changed his voice, "This is a Unix system. I know this." He laughed to himself. Getting no reaction from his audience, he explained, "_Jurassic Park_. When they were trying to reboot the security system. Admittedly, that didn't look like any Unix system I used at Stanford." Then he said, "I installed an on-screen keyboard so I can work faster. From here I can file a support ticket. Now, I'm probing the First National Bank of the Grand Caymans. I can do that now that I work for you guys, right? Isn't the CIA doing this sort of thing all the time?"

Sarah said, "We're still in the US, and Watterman is a US citizen, so the CIA doesn't have jurisdiction. I can operate inside our borders because this is a joint NSA/CIA project, but even my involvement is highly classified. When either of us has an Intersect flash, we're authorized to deal with an exigent situation, but investigating your old classmate isn't a fundamental concern for national security that needs to be dealt with right away."

Chuck stopped, and Casey asked what they were talking about. Sarah explained Chuck's flashes: flashing on the MI-6 agent, flashing on a La Ciudad scar that Sarah hadn't seen, and flashing on the guy Chuck knew from Stanford. Sarah said she flashed on the scar only after Chuck pointed it out and on the classmate only when Chuck said his name.

Chuck said, "I guess I should get out of this. His account doesn't have what we need anyway."

"What? You're already in?" Casey sounded impressed. Chuck thought he couldn't actually be impressed, even though he sounded like it, so he must have misinterpreted.

Chuck showed the two spies the screen, which displayed the large balance of Watterman's account at that bank. "I could transfer the money to some charity, but that wouldn't seize any other accounts he has or provide evidence we could use to arrest him."

Casey said, "You mean to tell me that you used a computer at a fast food restaurant to hack into a secure bank in a country known for being a place where criminals can hide from us?" Chuck shrugged.

"That's amazing," Sarah said. "Casey, I was just saying to Chuck that it'd help on missions if Chuck could look for things I didn't see. Four eyes are better than two. He could do it safely by staying in a surveillance van. I know if the NSA and CIA get their dream of human Intersect agents in the field, that won't always be possible. But we're just figuring this thing out, and we shouldn't limit ourselves. If Chuck could prove his worth as a field analyst, it would be a lot easier sell to add a set of eyes."

Casey lifted his eyebrows, indicating he was intrigued at idea.

Sarah directly asked her cover boyfriend. "What do you think, Chuck? You'd still be under our protection, but you wouldn't be just an asset anymore. You'd still have to work at the Buy More as a cover, but if you can prove your worth on a test mission, you'd be an employee of the Federal government. You'd be our full teammate."

Chuck wasn't expecting something like that. He thought his role was just to be a canary for Intersect tests while the real spies, one of them a human Intersect herself, saved the world. He expressed his concern. "I won't actual go where I'd have to use a kung fu chop, would I? Because I don't have one."

Sarah reassured him, "Most of the time, you'll be safely in the van. On some missions, you might go with me as a cover, to things like last night's art auction because the age difference wouldn't stick out. You'd be a more plausible date." She sent a knowing smile to Casey, who grunted. "Absolutely no weapons would be involved."

Chuck said, "But I don't know how to tango." Forget the tango, Sarah was confusing him again. Did she just imply there was some planet in which he would look like a likely date for her?

"Why would you have to know how to tango?" Sarah asked.

Casey chuckled, and Sarah glared at him. She said, "Chuck, you don't have to know how to tango."

"Casey said I was being left behind last night because I don't know how to tango." Casey continued his slow, gravelly laugh.

Sarah said, "You were left behind because you're a civilian and I was the human Intersect on the mission. Now, we know a little of what you can do on a computer, and we have evidence a second set of eyes can only help. Casey and I did not tango last night. If you want, I can teach you to tango."

Chuck thought of tango as the dance of love. "Why would you teach me?" Based on _True Lies_, he also thought of it as the dance of spies. He's not the spy.

Sarah shrugged. "I liked dancing with you before _someone_ crashed our date." Sarah didn't look his way, but Casey grunted, again.

Chuck would have to figure out what those sounds meant. He knew there were over a dozen and hadn't heard them enough to start a mental translation dictionary. The surprising thing was Sarah called their first dinner together a date. That was what he called it, when he was half-delusional. He never would've believed she thought of it that way.

Sarah stated a course of action, "Normally, we wouldn't investigate that guy you went to college with. We deal with threats to our nation, not regular crimes. However, we can use it as a practical test to see how you do as a field analyst. Casey and I will be your operatives for a mission tonight. Chuck, you come up with the plan. What do you want us to do?"

* * *

_**That night**_

The guard at the front desk mumbled as he scrolled through his screen, "Carmichael… Carmichael… Here you are. Sarah Carmichael." He clicked on the name Sarah had provided. "Yep. That's you. Floor 7. Go ahead. Have a good evening."

Sarah walked to the elevators. When she was far enough from the desk, she said into comms, "Good job, Chuck."

For this trial mission, Chuck explained at a high level what he needed. Sarah's and Casey's roles were to explain what was possible if he asked, and to execute the plan. Chuck didn't regularly break into offices, so he wasn't expected to plan every minute detail. He only had to say what to do in a general way and provide technical support.

Sarah wanted everything to go perfectly for him.

Chuck said the target's office would likely have information about the accounts they wanted to seize. He had said the laptop was in standby and wasn't actively on the Internet, so they needed to physically access it. Chuck had given Sarah a USB device to plug in. It would network the computer, and then Chuck would show he could extract evidence.

Sarah's suggestion was to scale the building, then go in through the roof. Chuck said that sounded more complicated than what he was thinking. Instead, he hacked into the employee directory and added a record showing that she worked there. Personally, she thought that was more complicated. To her, breaking in through the roof was simple. To Chuck, computer wizardry was, and the mission was his test.

After Sarah got off the elevator, Casey, sitting in the van out front with Chuck, spoke over comms. "Sarah _Carmichael_?"

Sarah should have expected that. Before the mission, Chuck had told them what cover name he would theoretically use: 'Charles Carmichael' He also spouted a rather complete backstory. It was impressive for someone who didn't create cover identities for a living. She needed to get ahead of this and explain the choice of name to Casey before he noticed that her cover disguise included a fake wedding ring.

"Sarah Carmichael is a lawyer married to Charles Carmichael." She heard the expected grunt. "It's just a cover identity, Casey. Almost all of my cover identities over the last nine years have been with foreign names. Either it was something that made more sense in that country, or I had a married name that I shared with my partner at the time." She strongly said, "I _don't_ want to use that name. Even then, I was normally Australian. Most of the time, when I needed a non-married last name common in the US, my dad came up with the name."

"Your dad?" Chuck inquired.

"That's not important," Sarah quickly said. Casey had pushed her buttons about making herself Chuck's cover-wife, causing her to let that slip. She wasn't ready to share her pre-CIA past with Chuck. She didn't want to scare away the only person who could relate to what was going on in her head. She continued her justification to the other agent. "I don't want to be propositioned by some roving security guard, so I picked Chuck's last name, so I picked Chuck's _cover_ last name. That makes sense from a cover perspective. Do you have a problem with that?"

Casey didn't say anything more to her about the name, but he questioned the story she used at the front desk. "Did Chuck say to use lady products?"

"No, I adlibbed that. If you mention tampons, guys get embarrassed. The man was supposed to verify my identity, which he could easily do because of the photo file Chuck successfully added to the employee directory. However, he never looked me in the eyes, which means he's less likely to remember me. I'm not getting tampons for myself because I didn't actually leave something here. Would you like to make a stop on the way home tonight so you can pick up something for yourself?"

That shut him up. Sarah got to the office that contained the target computer. It had an electronic lock. She had a device in her pocket, but before she went to retrieve it, she heard the click of the door unlocking.

"Nice work again, Chuck."

Everything from then on was even easier. She plugged the USB device into the laptop centered on the desk. She moved the wireless mouse to see the lock screen, but a second later, Chuck was past that. She could hear the hard drive make little whirring and clicking sounds. The files were already transmitting to a CIA server.

Sarah didn't know how long it would take. While Chuck said it would be no more than five minutes, she didn't believe that. Then again, she normally cloned the entire hard drive. Chuck said he could take over remotely and get just what he needed. Casey offered to get an NSA device, but Chuck said he could modify one of the returns at the Buy More that hadn't yet been re-shelved.

She wandered around the office, seeing pictures of the low-life, Allan Watterman. They were from his travels around the world. When they did a quick background check on this guy before the mission, public records said he was married. His wife wasn't in any of the pictures. She thought there would be at least one family photo, but no, he didn't want to look at her during the day.

"That's it," Chuck said over comms. Sarah wasn't expecting it that fast. It was maybe three minutes, tops.

She took the device and left. The only thing remaining concern was possibly the biggest hole in plan, one she introduced with her on-the-fly story. She had to walk by the security guard without a purse. She knew one easy source of distraction. As she left thought the front, she added a little extra sway to her hips. No problem.

Sarah got into the back of the van with Chuck, and Casey drove them away. She gave Chuck a brilliant smile. "I can't believe how easy that was. The Intersect flash gave us authority go where the flash led us, which let us seize the evidence. Now, it's out of our hands. The forensic accountants will go through the records. This mission went so much better than last night. You'll have my glowing recommendation. Casey?" she prompted the driver.

"You did good, kid."

Sarah took one of Chuck's hands in her own and said, "That's glowing for him. You still need to write a report. Despite Casey's and my recommendations, it'll take awhile to get through the bureaucracy. It's not like they can say you have the Intersect and fast-track you. They have to stick to channels. When the inevitable happens, I'm looking forward to working with you. As I said before, even though you'll no longer be an asset, we're still in charge of keeping you safe. Regardless, we'll be a proper team: two agents and a field analyst."

Sarah couldn't stop smiling as she gave Chuck's hand a squeeze. The back of the van was dark, but that didn't stop her from staring at the street lights reflecting in Chuck's eyes all the way to the Buy More parking lot.

* * *

A/N: In the show, it would have been fun if the government tried to utilize Chuck's non-Intersect, Piranha skills more often.

I haven't been doing songs for this fic, but with this one, I'm thinking "Getting to Know You" from _The King & I_. It didn't fit, except that _Chuck_ always featured a wide variety songs, and I got it stuck in my head for a while.


	4. The Wrong Spy

_Published December 12, 2019_

A/N: Chuck's not needed in the field because they have another human Intersect. They just need to keep the human Intersect civilian from getting into trouble.

* * *

**Another week later**

A year ago, being in the hotel room of gorgeous woman who was basically suggesting they have sex would have been a shock. Chuck wouldn't even say it was something like a gift to end his lack of _anything_ with a woman since Stanford. It wasn't in his wildest dreams, where he was always respectful. The concept simply seemed inconceivable, and not in the _Princess Bride_ way.

Present day, he was still surprised by the circumstances, but it didn't crack the top ten of the most surprising things that happen to him in the month since his birthday. Downloading the Intersect, stopping a bomb with a computer virus, and being asked to apply to the CIA were up there. At least seven others involved Sarah. He wasn't even sure her being a computer-stealing ninja was one of those seven.

He'd never been propositioned, but Carina wasn't the spy he wished had invited him to her hotel room, stripping out of her bathrobe. He wondered if Sarah wore red underwear like Carina or something like blue. No. He had to stop thinking that way. He was more respectful in his daydreams, too. Sarah already metaphorically owned him, and they weren't even really dating.

Carina implied that Sarah and Bryce were an item, and even if that was once true, Chuck knew Sarah hated his nemesis now. She was mad at him for killing someone when he was escaping from blowing up the Intersect, and she partly blamed him for the Intersect being in her head. Actually, the last time she said something bad about her former CIA partner, she included Chuck, but he knew she had to have been trying to include him to be nice—nice to Chuck, not the dead guy. With Bryce was on Chuck's enemies list longer, he was willing to be wanted to say bad things on his behalf.

In Chuck's book, Sarah had the right to be mad. If she didn't have the Intersect, she could go back to her jet-setting life, saving the day around the world.

* * *

**The next day**

Chuck sat with Sarah at a table in the always empty Wienerlicious dining area to talk about the next mission. He was actually going on a real mission! He wasn't going to be in the van like he thought, but he was going with Sarah and Carina into the lion's den, so to speak.

Sarah had insisted there would be nothing sharp like teeth or knives. Actually he asked specifically about knives and needles. She humored him by saying there would be no teeth. That ruled out his fear of a Jaws-wannabe, like from the Bond films. She refused to say anything about needles, but she winked and said to trust her.

She did say no guns. She was adamant about that. Earlier, she almost seemed to not want Chuck to go with them. Casey said orders came from the top. Chuck tried not to read too much into it.

Sarah laid out the mission. "This afternoon, we're going to a pool party at the home of criminal financier Peyman Alahi. We're going as Sarah and 'Chuckie' Carmichael with our sister, Carina Hansen. Carina insisted that we go as brother and sister to keep our hands off each other. I got her back by saying she had to have a different last name, the name of her fake ex-husband." Sarah smirked at the end.

Chuck tried to explain that he understood. "This way you're not tied to me, in case you meet some great guy at a place that probably will have a lot of buff guys."

Maybe he didn't understand because Sarah wrinkled her nose. "I don't have time for that. They're probably all criminals. Why would I want to meet someone when I already have a great guy as a cover boyfriend?" She smiled as she held his slightly moist hand. Chuck _definitely_ didn't understand.

"Sorry. I'm so nervous, my hands are sweating."

"Your hands are a little moist." She didn't let go, squeezing harder. "You have nothing to worry about. Stay close to me, and I'll protect you."

"I thought I'd be staying in van, or the limo, in this case. You mentioned going with you on occasion, but I didn't think that would really happen."

"I'd rather you stay in bubble wrap in my hotel room, but that's because it's my job to protect you and has nothing to do with the fact I'd like to tie you up in my room. At least this way I can keep an eye on you the whole time."

Was she flirting? Between Carina and Sarah, he wasn't sure. "You have an Intersect. You don't need me."

"That's not true. You're going to be there to provide valuable technical insight. Graham and Beckman said it's another trial mission. We'll case the place for me to go in tonight, probably with Carina. You're better with the Intersect than I am, so you'll help scout."

"We don't know that I'm better than you," Chuck argued. "Just because I did well on a test doesn't mean anything. I did well on a test back in school, and that's why they believed Bryce when he said I stole the answer key. I would have been better off if I flunked the test. I could have graduated even if I got a low grade in the course."

Sarah said, "Figures Bryce framed you. He was always an egocentric spy, thinking everything was about him. He was recruited while he was a student, so he probably wanted to see if he could pull it off."

"And he stole my girlfriend."

"_That_ makes a lot of sense," Sarah said. "What do you mean about you doing well on a test? What was it about?"

"There was a bonus section on identifying subliminal images… You don't think…"

Sarah nodded. "Yes, I think Bryce probably sent the Intersect to you because he knew you would retain most of it. He didn't know I would see it too, but that explains why you do better with the Intersect than I do. He knew you've always been good at understanding images like those encoded in the Intersect."

Chuck said, "We've figured out that the Intersect incorporates knowledge we already have. That's why I flashed on Carina yesterday morning, and you didn't flash until I mentioned Argentina during our double date last night. That was information you didn't know before, but it was enough to flash on her mission file. I still think you're more likely to know things that would trigger Intersect flashes useful to the mission, because I don't know stuff about what we'll see."

"It doesn't matter. You've already convinced me you'd be great as an analyst on our team providing technical support, but Graham and Beckman want to see what you can do going on missions that aren't likely to become hot. I've been arguing that it'd help if you were around to see things I don't notice, providing a second set of eyes, so I can't really argue. During the mission, try not to say something that will make me flash. We're lucky Carina and Morgan didn't see last night."

To cover the flash on the fake double date, Sarah buried her face in Chuck's neck. It sure felt "lucky", though in a different way than Sarah meant. He kept having to tell himself not to read too much into it.

"Also, we might need to work on our cover sometime," Sarah said. "We didn't kiss all night."

Chuck gulped. "I'm not really big on PDA. Plus Carina might have made Morgan think there was more between the two of them than there really is. We don't need to give her ideas."

Sarah shrugged, "I told Carina to cool off, but she does what she wants. She already has those ideas. Chuck, if we ever need to strengthen our cover, know you have my permission."

Chuck gulped again. Did she really just say he could kiss her? That he could kiss her without getting slapped? He was pretty sure it wasn't a good idea to take advantage of their fake relationship, though. He was happy by simply being around her. No reason to push it.

Sarah continued, "Carina is a great agent. I worked with her for a couple years. However, she can be unpredictable. Follow my lead, and don't trust her," she said. "When you're officially on the team, we're going to get better at this, because we'll do stuff like this more often, and it'll feel routine and perfectly safe."

Chuck let out a deep breath. "I'm so glad to hear you say that. After what Carina told me last night—"

Sarah quickly started asking questions. "What did Carina tell you? When did she talk to you?"

"I was the Nerd Herder on-call, and she made a support call to get me to her room."

"Did you sleep with her?"

Chuck completely denied the accusation. "What? No. I wouldn't. Morgan is unrealistically smitten. I wouldn't sleep with someone my best friend is head-over-heels with."

Sarah looked doubtful. "Carina didn't try?"

"I didn't say that."

"You turned her down." Sarah mouth started forming a small smile.

"Well, you might just be my cover-girlfriend, but I wouldn't cheat on you, even if Morgan wasn't fake-involved with her."

Sarah's smile held. "Thank you. I'd understand, but this is easier for a cover that includes Morgan." She stopped and tilted her head, looking more intently at Chuck. "What is it? What's bothering you?"

Chuck doubted he could ever hide something from Sarah. Considering Sarah said not everything Carina said could be trusted, he wanted an explanation. "Carina asked if the two of us are sleeping together, and when I said we aren't, she said that made sense considering you and Bryce…"

Sarah deeply exhaled. Before she could explain, Scooter, the manager of the Wienerlicious, said her break was over. Sarah confronted him, implying only most accidents in the kitchen were really accidents. Scooter scampered away. Chuck made a note to himself to be careful about Ellie with Sarah. He was sure as a trained spy, Sarah could take her, but Ellie was proficient with kitchen utensils. He didn't need a misunderstanding between the two most important women in the world to him.

Sarah returned to the table and started by saying, "When Bryce and I were, for lack of a better term, 'dating', he was a jerk. Honestly, I didn't realize it at the time, but it's obvious now. You're a better cover-boyfriend than he was a boyfriend. Bryce and I were partnered together a lot for the two years before I came here—not all of the time, but enough. Our covers were often to pretend to be married. The big-wigs look the other way for relationships between people inside the agency. Relationships between two people that work for the CIA are better than pulling foreign nationals with unknown loyalties into our world. Bryce was charming and was the longest relationship I had with any person, romantic or otherwise, since I joined the CIA, ignoring my boss. My family is not in the picture, like your parents aren't, but you're so much better off because you had someone great like your sister." Sarah paused and put both of her hands over Chuck's on the table between them. "I always appreciate you making me feel like I'm a part of the family, not just a bodyguard. Dinner and stuff. Anyway, with Bryce, he always exaggerated his achievements on reports, lessened mine, and flirted shamelessly with everyone we encountered on missions. Graham told me he knew what was going on, which is part of why he put me on other missions when I wasn't working with Bryce. I was on one of those missions right before I came to LA. I was assigned to find you to show I wasn't part of Bryce's treason. I'm lucky I found such a great guy when I got here. Fortunately, the traitor is dead."

That shattered Chuck's concerns. After what Carina had implied, he was a little worried that Sarah was upset that she lost her boyfriend, someone she was mad at, but someone she cared about a lot. Chuck liked to think he didn't think poorly of anyone, but Bryce was the exception. While Ellie and Morgan hated Bryce more than Sarah, he suspected it was not by much. He had one thing to make clear to Sarah, though.

"You _are_ part of the family," Chuck said. "Family to us is all of the most important people in our lives. As much as Ellie hates to admit it, Morgan is family. Casey is family, too, but we like you more. Shhh. Don't tell him." Sarah laughed with him and squeezed his hands again.

They smiled at each other for a minute, then they talked a couple more minutes about some logistics for the mission later that day.

* * *

_**That afternoon**_

It was supposed to be a simple surveillance mission—a good, safe way to get Chuck some field exposure outside of the car. He was doing well and identified security cameras which he could access. Then Carina happened.

She improvised and stole the diamond before they had an escape planned. The guards pulled out guns. Sarah was furious.

It turned out the means of getting the diamond was Chuck's plan, and he made the mistake of telling Carina. Sarah had warned him that Carina went off mission a lot. She should have told him not to give Carina any ideas. At least he ended up with the diamond and didn't give it to the impulsive DEA agent.

Casey showed up on the beach in a Hummer, seconds after Carina tried to get Chuck to give her the diamond. They all piled into the getaway car—Chuck in the front, the female spies in the back. Before they left the beach, Carina said with dismay that she had a jet ski off-shore, underwater, so she would have to go back and get it.

Casey drove off the beach and onto the road, taking the four of them back to Burbank. Sarah was glad he switched vehicles because the limo couldn't have handled the rough bumps in the sand. Sarah had to change into her Wienerlicious uniform while they moved or she'd be fired from her cover job.

In the grand scheme of things, Carina didn't seem too upset by the fact Chuck didn't give her the diamond. She was too carefree. She even grinned as she elbowed Sarah and pointed to the rear view mirror. Chuck was checking her out. He didn't see her see him, though, as Casey moved the mirror and said, "Eyes up front, soldier." Chuck tried to act like he wasn't watching Sarah put on a skirt, but he wasn't sneaking enough. Sarah was happy for the little reassurance that she had Chuck's interest. He was too much of a gentleman at times. As her cover-boyfriend, he was the one person allowed to look.

Carina asked where her diamond was. Sarah said the diamond wasn't hers. Chuck pulled it out of his pocket and held it up. Even looking at the back of his head, Sarah could tell Chuck flashed when he held the diamond in front of his face.

With the mirror at the wrong angle, Carina wouldn't have been able to see the flash. She said "Let me see that."

She reached up front, but Sarah cut her off. "I'll take that."

Sarah grabbed it from Chuck's hand, causing Chuck to say, "No, I'll give it to you later."

It was too late. Sarah had it and that caused _her_ to flash. It wasn't a drug diamond. It was being used to buy weapons. That took it out of DEA jurisdiction and made it a CIA concern.

This time, Carina saw the flash. Fortunately, she came up with another excuse. "Take it easy, Sarah. Chuck said he had plans to give you a diamond later." From her teasing tone, it was clear she meant a diamond with a ring. It was early for that. Chuck hadn't even kissed her, yet, and he didn't know enough about her to know he shouldn't want to be married to someone like her. Carina asked, "Haven't you had someone give you a diamond before?"

Sarah gave as good as she got. "This isn't a ring. You're upset because Carina Hansen hasn't received a diamond from a guy. Anything 'Carina Miller' received on a mission doesn't count."

Carina looked down and said, "Actually, I got married as Carina Hansen once for a mission. As 'Carina Miller' I've been proposed to a couple times, but I turned it down both times. One of them was just some random guy I met the night before. It was my fault for not slipping out in the middle of the night."

Making it about the red-headed spy covered for the flash. Sarah let her think it was a reaction to an asset/future teammate going too far. It was better than trying to explain the Intersect in some way that wouldn't give too many details. She finished buttoning her blouse up for her other job.

* * *

**_That evening_**

Sarah only had to work a couple hours at dinner time. Afterwards, she knocked on Chuck's apartment door to say hi. He had done a great job on the mission, once again. She wished the paper pushers would get their act together and make him a proper analyst for the team. That way no one could accuse her of having inappropriate thoughts about her asset. It's not like she wanted to worry about her dreams. She couldn't control that her best dreams were about Chuck.

After greeting Chuck, she'd check-in with Casey and find out how the diamond would be sent to the CIA and NSA in the morning. They had agreed that the CIA would handle it because they more often dealt with things like that, but the NSA would be in the loop, and Casey was handling the transfer. Graham and Beckman could decide together if there would be a follow-up mission.

Chuck answered and breathlessly said, "Hi." After a boring evening of re-stacking cups and burning corn dogs for the dinner rush, one smile of Chuck was enough to lift her spirits. Chuck joined her in the courtyard.

Sarah knew Ellie and Devon's schedules. They both were recently home from doubles so they mostly likely crashed in bed. Chuck was giving them some quiet, rather than inviting her in.

"Hi, Chuck. Great job today. I'm sorry about that mix-up with the weapons diamond. You knew I was going to flash, and I was too worried about Carina not getting her hands on it. Fortunately, it worked out."

Before Chuck could say anything, Casey's door opened, and Casey pushed Carina out into the courtyard. Wearing an undershirt and four-leaf clover boxers, Casey had his hands cuffed around a broken piece of a headboard. Carina looked frustrated.

Casey gruffly said like nothing was amiss, and he went back inside. He left Carina for Sarah and Chuck to deal with.

Sarah said, "Don't tell me. Like Prague?"

"I went inside to get the diamond. I know you guys are going to turn it in, but it's _my_ mission. Casey found me, so I seduced and restrained him. I wasn't expecting him to break his headboard in half." Carina explained.

Sarah said, "It's not your mission anymore. We talked to our bosses, and there's new evidence the diamond was used for moving weapons. That makes it a CIA issue, not a DEA issue."

Carina said, "Oh, well. It was fun working with both of you. Good luck with that thing you're not doing anything about."

Chuck started to ask what she meant, when the door to his apartment opened. Morgan stepped out, and his face lit up. "Carina!"

"Hi, Martin," Carina said. She stepped over and gave him a full kiss on the lips. Sarah could tell Chuck was about to make a comment, so she lightly elbowed him to be quiet.

Carina said to Morgan/Martin, "Let's get out of here." The two of them left hand-in-hand.

Chuck asked Sarah, "What was _that_?"

"Agents like to burn off energy after missions. I'm not doing that now, though." She was pretty sure she didn't keep the disappointment out of her voice. She told Chuck, "Don't worry. Casey's a special case. For others, Carina doesn't play with the men she takes an interest in. Morgan will get a happy ending. She'll be gone tomorrow, and we'll deal with the fall-out, together. Morgan knows Carina travels a lot, so that works as a cover."

Sarah pointed to Casey's. "I need to check on the diamond hand-off."

Chuck pointed the other direction. "Morgan used the bathroom. I need to make sure he put the lid down."

Neither moved for a moment. They just stared into each other's eyes. Sarah felt them lean in a microscopic amount, then Chuck turned to leave. The moment had passed. Again. It wouldn't have been for the cover, though, so she supposed it was for the best while he was still an asset and not yet an analyst.

She knocked on Casey's door and hoped he'd put on some pants. Although… She pulled out her cell phone and readied the camera, just in case.

* * *

A/N: Smile. I mean Casey, smile for the camera. Next chapter, more smiles coming for the rest of you.


	5. Practice

_Published December 13, 2019_

A/N: Are these crazy kids ever going to get together?

* * *

**Another week, no kiss**

All in all, Chuck thought it could have been worse. At least Sarah survived her first "Evening with Morgan."

The sizzling shrimp was wonderful. It was a good thing Sarah got the dinner location out of Morgan. She didn't even have to threaten to maim him. She called ahead and found out the Bamboo Dragon was closed that evening for an event. Delivery was still running, so they ordered on the phone and ate at Chuck's apartment.

Morgan complained about the lack of (illegal) fireworks, but Chuck hated those anyway. Morgan wanted to "give the night an asterisk," which Sarah took seriously. She took Chuck aside for a minute and said she didn't want the night to be ruined. She offered some low yield explosives she thought she could get her hands on, maybe even from across the courtyard at Casey's, but Chuck said she could stand down.

They watched _Enter the Dragon_, of course. Sarah mentioned that she was impressed with the martial arts, even when Morgan pointed out several places where the punches and kicks didn't make contact. That only made the movie more impressive to a professional at lethal hand-to-hand combat. She said that it had to be hard to fight like that and _not _hit someone.

The demonstration between Morgan and Chuck was embarrassing because Chuck knew the audience. Chuck was certain Sarah had witnessed countless CIA class demonstrations from actual black-belts who knew what they were doing, but she didn't seem to mind. He did notice her staring at him intensely the rest of the night.

When it was time for the guests to leave, Sarah hung back. Morgan being Morgan, mistook her actions. They made him think they were all staying. Sarah had to flat-out tell him that she wanted some alone time with her "boyfriend." She was so good at the cover-dating thing, Chuck didn't even hear the air quotes that had to be there.

With Chuck and Sarah alone in the apartment, she led them to sit on the couch. Throughout the evening, Chuck sat in between his best friend and his fake girlfriend to serve as a buffer, figuring it was probably better for Sarah. At the moment, Sarah was actually a little closer to Chuck than she had been the entire night.

Chuck scooted away a foot to respectfully give Sarah some more space. Sarah followed him, ending up close enough that their knees were pressed together. He was confused. It was almost like she wanted to be by him, even after suffering through an "Evening of Morgan". He thought he was the only person that could do that, not that he ever minded or considered it "suffering" himself. His best friend was just an acquired taste that he figured was easier to get used to at age 8. No one else had lasted long enough to acquire a taste for it.

"Chuck," Sarah said. "I'm worried about our cover." She put her hand on Chuck's thigh. "I won't bite." She quietly laughed to herself. "Much."

That made Chuck even more concerned. He had tried so hard not to stare longingly at his cover-girlfriend. Maybe her behavior had something to do with him staring at her all night. She must have caught him. Casey and Carina had, so it only made sense that she had, too. "What's the problem?" he feigned ignorance.

"We've been dating for a month, and no one has seen us kiss. I know that no one could have seen us kiss because we have never kissed."

Ok, he was completely misunderstanding what they were talking about. No longer surprised that she wanted to still be by him, he was surprised because it sounded like she wanted to kiss him—for the cover. He said, "I know this cover relationship is mandated by the CIA. I don't want to force something on you that isn't your choice."

"We can only cover-date because you're my asset, but the cover means we need to keep up appearances. That means when we're on the couch together to watch a movie, I should be sitting practically on top of you."

"I didn't want to rub our fake relationship in Morgan's face. Besides, you were brave enough to take on this evening, and you didn't even cringe and show us the best way to throw a kick. You probably have never seen kung fu fighting that bad. After suffering through something like tonight, you shouldn't have to suffer through me hanging all over you."

Sarah let out a deep breath. "How do you know I know kung fu?"

"I haven't seen anything you can't do. The night we met, you kicked me across the room. When we went out to dinner the next night, you took out those guys from the NSA. They're on our side. I've seen what you can do to the bad guys, like at the Wookiee's pool party. I imagine you're often even more fierce," Chuck said in a fast ramble.

Sarah challenged, "You bugged Casey until he told you about his team, didn't you?" Chuck nodded.

Chuck sheepishly nodded.

Sarah raised her eyebrows. Chuck's diversion with other examples wasn't working. She was going to find out. He stopped putting off the inevitable and admitted, "I flashed on you. I mean, I flashed, and you were in it."

Sarah forcefully asked, "What did you see?"

"On some security footage, you were fighting two guys in a parking lot. One of them had a gun. You didn't, until you took it away, then shot him and the security camera."

Sarah looked like she was thinking for a second, then she remembered and said, "You saw that? Of course, you did. You flash on everything I don't. What caused you to flash?"

"That blue ring you have. You wouldn't have a reason to flash because you were there and already know what happened."

"Maybe. You're supposed to tell me about all flashes. What else have you flashed on about me?"

Chuck squirmed a bit and admitted, "Or I can tell Casey about flashes. Casey was messing with me that first week, I think trying to get me to trust him more than you. He said the name Elana Truffaut.

Sarah nodded, indicating she knew the name. "The French assassins I poisoned."

"Oh, that makes more sense about what you were doing at dinner. I told Casey that I didn't know the details, that it was probably some mission. I don't think he knew anything more than the name. I haven't learned all of his grunts yet, but I think it was the 'you don't say' grunt."

"Have you flashed on Casey?" Sarah questioned.

"No. Who knows how this thing works," Chuck said, tapping his head.

"I haven't flashed on him or me. Or you."

Chuck said, "Of course, not me. I wouldn't be in the Intersect. It's filled with top secret information."

Sarah twisted her lips. "If I ever flash you. We'll both know it." Chuck's brain froze, and he felt the blush creeping up his neck. She had left out a word and knew it.

Sarah went back to her first topic, placing her hand on Chuck's thigh. "About tonight, who said I would have minded you being all over me? Or maybe I could have been all over you." The fake flirting was a little much. Chuck couldn't help but roll his eyes before Sarah added, "I really did have a good time tonight. The only thing out of place was the cold shoulder that was coming from my boyfriend."

"_Cover_ boyfriend," Chuck corrected. "What was I supposed to do?"

Sarah moved her face mere inches in front of Chuck's. "More. How about we start simple? Kiss me."

"What? I… uh…"

"Come on, Chuck. We've been dating for weeks. Don't you find me attractive?"

"Of course," Chuck answered without hesitation.

"Kiss me."

Chuck cautiously leaned in. Their lips only touched for a second, but Chuck definitely felt something. There _were_ fireworks. A lot better than the supply that was probably at Casey's. This kind let him keep all of his hands. Morgan might be disappointed, but they weren't that kind of fireworks. These were only for Sarah and him.

Sarah licked her lips afterwards. Chuck wanted to do that again, but he didn't want Sarah to end the dream. She said, "That's it?" She almost seemed disappointed. The way she said it indicated she wasn't unhappy with the kiss but the fact that they weren't still kissing. "Let's try that again."

He leaned in again, and Sarah didn't wait for him, meeting him in the middle. This kiss was stronger. Tongues were involved. Chuck wanted to put his handles on or her face or something, but he managed to keep them at his side. Sarah didn't hold back. She put her hands on the sides of _his_ face and kept their lips pressed together for quite a few seconds.

When they finally separated, Sarah had a brilliant smile. Chuck was too stunned to alter his expression. That was even better than he had ever imagined it would be. He couldn't smile, though. He was still in shock that he got to kiss Sarah Walker—that she kissed him.

"Chuck?" Sarah prompted. She gave Chuck a peck on the lips to try to break him out of his stupor. The last thing that would work would be Sarah lips, so he stayed frozen. Sarah laughed and patted Chuck on the cheek, breaking the spell.

"No complaints about execution on my side. What about you?" Sarah asked.

Chuck's head went up and down several times. "Yeah, that was good."

Sarah said, "The only problem is you look like we haven't been kissing for a month. I think the best way to deal with that is practice."

"Practice," Chuck repeated, still a little out of it. "You want to practice kissing me?"

Sarah said with conviction, "Yes. To have a solid cover, we should kiss whenever we meet or part. If we're watching a movie with your family or friends, we should snuggle together. It'll help if we practice kissing each other."

Chuck's face was frozen again. Part of him wanted a movie night every day for the next three weeks, but part of him said he shouldn't be that guy.

Sarah put her hand to Chuck's cheek in almost a caress, then got up to leave. He walked her to the door. At the threshold, she turned and tilted her head up, waiting. That's when Chuck realized she was expecting a practice kiss. He pecked her cheek, but that wasn't what Sarah wanted. She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him in for a more solid kiss. Chuck was going to have to get used to that. He supposed he could "suffer" through it.

Getting used to Sarah Walker kissing him… His life was fantastic.

When they separated, Sarah said, "Next time, put your hands on my hips."

Chuck couldn't believe she said that. That's _exactly_ what he wanted to do. He didn't know he was allowed. Sure, he was allowed to touch her lips with his, but he didn't want to risk that ending by pushing. Then he remembered that she wanted the cover to be rock-solid. Anything for the cover. He'd "suffer" through it.

"Good night, Chuck." She started to lean in again, then seemed to think better of it, like they had already practiced enough for the evening, so she turned and left.

* * *

A/N: That's chapter 5. I say that's slow. It's at least slower to the first kiss than my last story with two Intersects, "Chuck & Sarah vs the Email." Chuck and Sarah didn't get married in chapter 5 either, unlike "Chuck vs the Nemesis's Ex." Not to get too far ahead on this one, but they aren't getting married in the next chapter either. It's still only practice… officially.


	6. Not Practice

_Published December 16, 2019_

A/N: Sports quote from 76er Allen Iverson:

"It's easy to sum it up when you're just talking about practice. We're sitting in here, and I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we in here talking about practice. I mean, listen, we're talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, we talking about practice. Not a game. Not… not … Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last. Not the game, but we're talking about practice, man. I mean, how silly is that? And we talking about practice."

In this story, it's game time!

* * *

_**Several days****—****a lot of cover**__** kisses****—****later**_

Sarah wiped the already clean counter at the Wienerlicious and looked at the clock for the twelfth time in the last hour. Chuck hadn't come over for lunch. He wasn't supposed to see her then, but it was three o'clock, so he should be there any second. He was to come over during his afternoon break.

She'd been going to meet him most days in the middle of the afternoon during _her_ break. At the Buy More, they kissed "for cover." Most of the time at Wienerlicious, where it was empty, she'd just see his eyes light up and his wonderful grin. In the past, that would be enough, but now she's addicted. She needed her daily hit of Chuck.

She hadn't known what to do about everything she had been feeling about her asset. In her opinion, he never should have been classified as an asset. It no longer mattered, at least from the asset-handler perspective.

One problem fixed.

Sarah still didn't know what to do about her unfamiliar feelings, but part of her job was to kiss the most wonderful man in the world. She planned to enjoy it—guilt free—for as long as she could.

Sarah wasn't even 100% sure what Chuck wanted. After their practice session the other day, she was almost certain, but not quite. On the plus side, if Chuck hadn't been so withdrawn before then, she couldn't have justifiably initiated a the marvelous "practice" session idea.

As for his feelings… On one hand, his eyes lit up whenever he saw her. He was the type of person who seemed happy to see everyone—but not _that_ happy. On the other hand, they had been cover-dating for over a month, and she almost never caught him checking her out. She couldn't go to the local CVS without three people staring. The key part of that was she _almost _never caught Chuck. Back on the first hand (she didn't have three hands, and they were getting full), she did notice that he did occasionally check her out. He just quickly looked away, acting like he wasn't doing what she saw him doing. He couldn't hide that well; he wasn't that smooth. Sarah was used to receiving a lot of unwanted looks. As her long-term cover boyfriend, he was _allowed_. She would have never called him on that. On that second hand, he never initiated a cover-kiss.

Sarah knew she was spiraling.

It was cute whenever Chuck did something like flip out about that his mission attire of that see-through, white suit he wore to a pool party.

It was even cuter when he went around in circles for five minutes talking about the role of a cover-boyfriend on Sweetest Day. He didn't know if he should get her for something for the day, saying it'd be easier if there was a "fake-Sweetest Day." He made sure he realized he wasn't saying she was "fake sweet." He had settled on wishing her a good day and thanking her for not letting him make a fool of himself on the last "trial" mission. In her book, the gift was the ego boost of hearing him obliquely call her his sweetest three times while trying to say he didn't want to make her uncomfortable by forcing her into normal boyfriend/girlfriend conventions.

Sarah hadn't heard of the holiday. Bryce didn't even do anything for Valentine's day. She wasn't about to hold it against Chuck. A gift, even a card, from Chuck would have been really awkward because they were just cover dating, and it would have brought home the fact that she wanted it to be more. Watching him blush three times while getting flustered about the entire thing, made her day. His actions that day were another sign that he had feelings and was just trying to not force anything on her in a mandated cover-relationship.

She shouldn't be the one spiraling. She could calmly step off the back of a plane at thirty thousand feet. She should be able to take the next step with Chuck.

She was 100% sure of one thing. She needed Chuck. As a junior conwoman and then as a CIA agent, she never _needed_ someone. Now she had some strange kind of computer program in her head. It didn't matter to her that Chuck wasn't an agent. (She was happy he wasn't one.} Regardless, he was the one person in the world that could relate to what it meant to have the Intersect. It didn't matter to him that he was better at flashing than she. Whenever she told him about a flash she had, it was obvious that he was on her side, caring about how it affected her as a person.

Chuck entered her empty restaurant. They had about fifteen minutes before the time when the teenage boys showed up after school. Chuck smiled, and Sarah felt her stomach jump. She moved out to the seating area to meet her now former asset. The past few days, they didn't kiss without an audience and always shorter than her liking, out of consideration of Chuck's avoidance of PDA. They only kissed at his place of work, not hers, because if someone was at her cover place of employment, she was busy. They never got around to a practice session in her hotel room. The last time they planned it, a flash got in the way, and they had to arrest an unstable, young, mad scientist. She had been hoping they'd have another evening to practice, and she'd get Chuck to start initiating.

No more waiting. No more practice.

Sarah put both hands on Chuck's face and gave him the strong kiss that she'd been wanting to give him. She didn't bite, but that didn't mean she didn't not try to swallow him. Chuck didn't seem to mind, doing his part.

Sarah stopped a second before she was tempted to drag Chuck into a storage closet.

"Wow," Chuck said. "Hi. I'm not complaining, but what was that? More practice? I'm not sure about doing that in front of everyone, but if we need to practice more, I'm fine with doing more of that."

Sarah smiled. "That was congratulations."

"You heard? Did Casey text you? I didn't know he ever texted. Or did you hear Morgan cheer?" Chuck asked in a rush.

"No. Why would Morgan know? He doesn't know you've been working with Casey and me. What are you talking about?"

"The assistant manager job."

"You got that? Of course you did. You're the best employee in that store. Congratulations for that, too." Sarah grabbed Chuck's face and kissed him again. He kissed right back with as much enthusiasm.

Sarah stopped them sooner, this time. The horny boys would be there soon, and she didn't need to put on a show they might upload to YouTube.

Chuck smiled, his arms loosely framing Sarah's hips. "Thank you. Twice, I guess. What was the first congratulations?"

Sarah could barely contain her smile. "They finally got the paperwork done. You're a CIA field analyst!" She gave him a quick kiss, not trusting herself with anything longer.

"That's great!" Chuck said. Then a look of confusion crossed his face. "What again does that mean? How is that different than before? I've already been working with you and Casey."

"It means you are not my asset. That means we're no longer cover-dating."

Chuck wrinkled his forehead, "We're no longer cover-dating. But we just—"

"Sorry, I meant we're no longer _just_ cover-dating. You still work at the Buy More—as assistant manager, now—" Her smile turned mischievous for a second. "I just realized you can order Casey around. I still work here. To everyone who doesn't know we have the Intersect in our heads, we've been dating a month. Officially, we've been dating for five minutes." Sarah coyly bit her bottom lip. "If you want to be my boyfriend."

"You want to date for real?" With no negative from Sarah, Chuck breathlessly said, "Yeah."

They kissed again. This time, Chuck pulled her closer, holding around her shoulders.

When they stopped—Sarah thought they had to have been dating for eight minutes now—Chuck said, "I still don't understand. "What were we doing before, and how is it different now?"

Sarah said, "Before we were fooling most people that weren't spying. We were also fooling ourselves that we didn't want to date for real. Or maybe we weren't fooling ourselves… unless I'm assuming…"

Chuck didn't let her finish, pulling her strongly to him and fusing his mouth with hers. She really liked it when Chuck tried to take charge. It's not like he was in charge, but for something like what was happening at that moment, she was happy with him leading the way.

When their tongues touched, it was like someone had turned up a knob. Sarah pushed Chuck up against the counter. Then she started moving them around the end of the counter to the back. When they got to the door, she pushed off Chuck's chest. "No. We can't do that. No matter how much we want to."

"_We_?"

Sarah said, "Maybe I'm presuming. Part of me wants to throw you onto the nearest flat surface."

Chuck laughed. "That sounds like a good plan to me. Why is it different now than yesterday?"

"There are rules against asset-handler relationships," Sarah explained. "Agent-analyst and agent-agent relationships are fine as long as they don't get in the way of the mission. Now we don't have to tiptoe around each other."

"I didn't realize. But we've been kissing."

Sarah clarified, "For the cover. If you weren't such a prude and didn't need the practice, brief kisses in public were all we could do. Now we don't need to use 'practice' as an excuse if we want to make out on your sofa." She lifted and lowered her eyebrows a few times.

"Is this why you've been so worked up about the government taking their time on my application?" Chuck asked. "I just figured government bureaucracy is always slow. I didn't know—"

"That they have been getting in the way of something I've wanted since before you stopped a bomb with a computer virus. Normally, getting clearance would require an interview and a security check. However, there's only one person on the planet with a higher security clearance than we have because of things we might find out from the Intersect, and his second term ends next year. I insisted that you not get an entry-level position because of your skill, which they balked at because you don't have a college degree. That's stupid because one dead, rogue CIA agent prevented you from getting that. Defusing the bomb should have been enough. Then there was the Watterman mission. Then there was the Nadan-I-Noor diamond. Then you reported Lazslo and distracted him so we could capture him at the Buy More. Graham said they were trying to go slowly so it wouldn't raise flags that they were pulling strings for someone who had the Intersect. After the fourth test, I told him that using four trial missions was more suspicious than what they were trying to avoid."

"Wow. You might have wanted me to work for the CIA more than I did. The way I saw it, either way we got to spend a lot of time together."

"Now, I don't have to hold back," Sarah said.

Chuck let loose one of his best smiles. "I felt that. You said before I disabled that bomb? I thought that was just me. Was that before or after you kicked me across the room?" Chuck switched to a closed-mouth, teasing smile.

Sarah smirked and shrugged. "I was mad at you for not calling to ask me on a date. Bryce might be your nemesis, but he's probably third on my list of people who deserve a good asking kicking. Hang Tang is at the top of my list for his interruption that day."

An amazed smile stayed on Chuck's face. "And you want to be my girlfriend?"

"Absolutely. I want you, a smart, caring, sweet, and cute guy to be my boyfriend. He's a great kisser. I know you say you want to date me, but you don't really know me, yet. No one does. I had aliases back before you'd believe. Maybe someday… It doesn't matter. You, Chuck Bartowski, are the only person that can understand what it feels like to have this thing in my head. Plus, I feel this tingling sensation whenever we kiss."

"That's not just me?" Chuck asked.

Sarah smiled and slowly shook her head.

Chuck said, "You should know, I've felt the way I feel about you for a long time, too."

Part of Sarah wanted to tell more of her feelings to Chuck, but even she didn't fully understand them. Instead, she just wanted to show him and not have to curb her actions. She asserted, "You should go, or I'll have to flip the closed sign and lock the door before a bunch of pimply-faced teenagers come with their cell phone cameras."

Chuck said, "I suppose so. Oh, Awesome and Ellie are going to the UCLA-Stanford game this weekend. Am I correct in assuming you don't want to go?"

"You're right. Am I correct in assuming you'll have the apartment alone to yourself all day? Or should I say _we'll_ have it alone to _ourselves_ all day?"

Chuck's eyes got really big as he nodded. They wrapped themselves in each other's arms, and stayed that way with their lips attached to each other for a few moments.

After Chuck finally returned to work, Sarah felt like a great burden had been lived. She no longer felt like she had to fight inappropriate feelings for her asset. Her shift of hot dogs burning seemed to last forever, though. Three days until Saturday were three days too many.

* * *

A/N: The rules are gone. The two people with the biggest smiles are fictional.


	7. Choice

_Published December 17, 2019_

A/N: Sarah's plans for Saturday were to take advantage of an empty apartment. No plan survives first contact with the enemy. Who's the enemy here? A crossbow-wielding Icelander? A nemesis/rouge spy? Maybe an egotistical professor who doesn't care about his students or national security secrecy. Does it matter?

Quote from a movie series that is concluding later this week:

"You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." — Obi-Wan Kenobi,_ Return of the Jedi_

* * *

_**Friday, November 10, 2007**_

Sarah tried not to look frantic as she rushed up to Casey's door and knocked. She was frantic, though. His message was cryptic, only saying that she needed to get over there right away. A record might have been set. She and Chuck had only been non-cover dating a few days, and she already was worried to death about her non-cover boyfriend—even more than she was when he was just her protectee. A few years before, she worked as a CIA liaison to the secret service. She had always taken protection very seriously. To her, Chuck 's welfare was more important.

Casey opened the door, and Sarah shot right by him. Chuck was there, sitting safe and sound on the couch. Most of her concern melted away, but that left the most obvious question. "What did you flash on, Chuck?"

Chuck held up an old student ID from Stanford. That's when her own flash hit.

"Chuck, why are you in the Intersect?"

"I don't know. It must be Professor Flemming's fault. I guess I'm helping find him."

* * *

_**The next night, after the UCLA Bruins crushed the Stanford Cardinal football team, since the band didn't take the field during the game**_

It was hard for Chuck to get his head around, but considering he had a computer in his head and he was dating someone as fantastic as Sarah Walker, it should be easy. He could barely believe Bryce Larkin framed him to "save" him from being drafted into the CIA. Did the CIA even draft people? The last draft he knew of was for Vietnam. Chuck was an American citizen. He had a say in the matter. He joined the CIA as an analyst _by choice_. Later, Bryce took away his choice one in college and once on his birthday a few weeks ago, making him one of the world's two most valuable pieces of intelligence. In between, Chuck's life was in shambles.

Sarah was right. Bryce was unbelievably self-centered. He didn't care if his actions affected people. He thought he knew best.

Chuck almost hated to think it, but fortunately for him, Sarah downloaded the Intersect, too. Bryce never saw that coming. Now, instead of an egotistical spy at his side, he had a beautiful and deadly girlfriend. That was far better.

Sarah rubbed Chuck's neck and shoulders as she stood behind him, still at the computer where he had watched the video of his former friend talking with his former professor. Her magical hands were the only thing keeping him calm. He closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side. She lightly kissed his exposed neck.

"Make a copy of the video and encrypt it," Sarah ordered. "I'll turn in the disc, but you should have proof of what they did to you. Bryce was already in the CIA, and Flemming was working on their behalf. The CIA is culpable for framing an American citizen. They facilitated Bryce continuing to behave like that. Graham knew I was the only person that could put up with Bryce and could get the job done with him as a partner. I had a really low bar for boyfriends until I met you. Letting Bryce act like that led to him destroying an NSA facility and killing one of the people whose job it was to protect it. You should keep a copy of the video because it might be needed someday to get you a degree, after the Intersect is out of your head."

"I don't see what good a degree would do me. I don't really trust Stanford."

"A degree is sometimes a check mark. You're right for not trusting them. They believed Bryce and didn't give you a fair shake. If you had challenged Bryce's frame job, his story about you selling tests would have fallen apart, and he would have put Flemming's entire CIA recruitment program, and thus countless agents, at risk. You should have the option in the future to clear your name."

"_You_ don't care if I have a degree." That was the most important thing to Chuck. He continued, "I don't need the degree for the Buy More. If I were to start my own software company, I wouldn't need it. I don't know if you know, but Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard."

Sarah rubbed his neck some more and gave him another kiss. "Yes, I know the world's richest man briefly went to the school where I graduated."

"You went to Harvard? Of course you went someplace like that. You're brilliant."

Sarah didn't acknowledge the compliment, brought the focus back to Chuck, and said, "Make that copy. We may never need it, but I don't trust the CIA not to lose evidence that proves they're to blame."

Sarah let go of Chuck's neck, and he went to work. After isolating the video, he was ready to encrypt it. He needed a password. "What's your middle name? I'm going to have the decryption password be 'Sarah's middle name is 'something,' with a period at the end. I need to know what to type for 'something.'"

"Lisa," Sarah answered without hesitation. "That makes the password 'Sarah's middle name is Lisa.' You know Sarah's not my real name, right?"

"It's not? Who am I dating? Not that we've gone on a real, non-cover date yet. Who am I—"

"Not that we've been passionately kissing? I'm counting all of our cover dates, so we are already dating. Sarah Lisa Walker is my legal name, and you call me Sarah, so it doesn't matter what my birth certificate says. Graham, my mom, and my dad are the only people who know it, and my mom is the only person who has called me that name since I can remember. I haven't answered to that name in a couple decades."

Chuck entered the password, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bra drop to the floor. What was going on behind him? His pulse doubled, but he decided to play it casual. "You've never talked about your mom or your dad."

"Please don't mention my mom again. The CIA doesn't even know about her. I'm pretty sure Graham doesn't know she's still alive. I'm not ready to talk about my dad either. I don't want to keep secrets from you. I'm just not ready."

The encryption finished, and Chuck ejected the disc. Sarah said, "Tonight is about you. I want to lay in bed with you holding me."

Chuck looked and couldn't believe what he saw. While Sarah distracted him by getting him to make the backup, she stripped down to her boy shorts and put on his black T-shirt with a Union Jack. An amazed smile formed on his otherwise frozen face.

* * *

_Oh, no_, Sarah thought. _I broke my boyfriend._ She never had the chance to stash a change of clothes in his room, so she just put on the first clean T-shirt she could find. At least Chuck looked happy.

The last time something like that happened, she tried kissing him and that didn't work. She had to lightly slap his face. She was concerned that she might have to hit him harder, so she decided to try the kiss approach, again. Her lips met his, and he responded. He still wasn't talking, but they didn't need to talk. They were just going to sleep together—actually sleep-sleep together. He didn't need to talk for that. She stripped him down to his boxers and lead him to a spot in bed behind her.

Pulling his arm around her, she once again thought it was a great thing he was no longer her asset. It was the safest she felt that she could remember.

He finally said something. "I didn't brush my teeth."

"That's ok. You didn't have a hot dog at the game. You still taste good to me."

* * *

_**The morning after**_

Ellie left her room wearing scrubs for work. At least Sunday shifts were typically quiet. Chuck was getting towels from the closet, humming a tune. She was glad she was done in the bathroom since Chuck was about to take a shower. A thought struck her. "Chuck, I put clean towels in the bathroom yesterday evening. You don't need those."

She heard the shower turn on. Oh. Someone else was in there. He was getting _extra_ towels. "Never mind. Care on."

As the sister who practically raised Chuck, she was glad she never previously had to experience the awkwardness of knowing about her younger brother having shower sex. She was glad he never invited someone home during break from college, like that harpy he dated. Despite being concerned about him after Stanford, she found herself a little glad he had been celibate since then.

Devon walked up behind her. He said to Chuck, "Making sure each other's backs are extra clean? Awesome."

Her boyfriend had figured out the situation quickly. After that comment, though, she was extra happy she was leaving for work.

* * *

_**A week later**_

Sarah rolled over to join Chuck on his pillow. Music softly played in the background. She was amazed that he kept finding good songs for her. She had never been into music, but now she believed she only needed the right personal D.J.

Chuck looked at her, which was perfect for what she wanted to say. If he wanted to break up with her after this conversation, she wanted to look into his eyes as long as possible.

She started, "I've said some things that indicated I didn't have a normal childhood."

"I've picked up on a little, including the not-so-subtle 'don't push.'"

"Thank you for not pushing. I'm ready to tell you some of it. Afterwards, if you want to stop dating me, I understand."

Chuck wrinkled his forehead and said, "Now you're talking crazy-talk, because I can't imagine anything so bad that I wouldn't want to hold you in my arms as we went to sleep."

"That's sweet, but you don't know that I'm a criminal."

Chuck scoffed, "I know that you break the laws in other countries as a spy. That's all done to keep our country safe."

"That's a continuation of what I did before I worked for the CIA. Now, I carry a gun and knives."

Chuck brushed his hand through her hair, giving her the chance to continue.

"I was a conwoman. I am now, too, coning people in other countries. I also break into places and kill people. And now if you want me to leave, I'll be heartbroken, but I'll understand. We can be regular teammates."

Chuck put an arm under and around her and squeezed her closer. "You've not going anywhere. I know who you are and what you've had to do as a spy. I don't care. You're one of our country's heroes."

Sarah titled up and kissed Chuck on the jaw before rolling practically on top of him. She quietly said, "I'm not a good person like you. The day I met you, you were the hero of Burbank. The next night, you were the hero of LA, stopping a bomb from going off. Now, you're one of the country's heroes."

Chuck said, "We both are. I don't care about what you've had to do in the past."

"Even if that means I intentionally fell off my bicycle in front of an armored car so my dad could rob it."

"You what? You fell off your _bike_? How old were you?"

"It was a long time ago. Like I said, I've been a conwoman a long time. When my dad left my mom, I left with him, to stay with the fun parent. I was his partner," Sarah said.

"Your dad?"

"Yeah. My dad is a conman. He was arrested my senior year in high school. He's in prison, up for parole next year. Fortunately, I had stopped working with him while I was in high school, or else I might be there, too. Instead, Graham found me and recruited me into the CIA, where the people I con and steal from are bad people. That kept me out of prison."

Chuck said, "Wait a second. You were a minor. Your dad's sins are not your own. He was supposed to be the responsible one. What you did back then is not your fault. The CIA recruited you out of high school? Is that even legal?" Chuck asked.

Sarah explained, "I was almost 18. I guess school thought I was 18, because they had a false birth date in their files. Graham has seen my real birth certificate and knew I was close to 18. I was that old by my first day of training."

"It might have been legal, sort of, but it was still wrong to manipulate you like that," Chuck said. "You should have had a choice. It's like Bryce, but instead of kicking you out of school for something that wasn't your fault, they threatened prison."

"The sent me to Harvard," Sarah argued.

"You're in bed with someone who didn't graduate from college. It took a while to get here, but lacking a college degree seems pretty good from where I am. This does explain some things, like how you always defer to Graham because you think he saved you instead of manipulating you so you think you can be nothing else."

"Graham has always looked out for me," Sarah protested.

"It's a good thing that he has, considering he stole your choice. It does explain why you were so adamant about the government not using me when I didn't have a choice in this."

"I wouldn't put it that way. No matter how I got here, the important thing is that I'm here, with you."

Sarah tilted her head up and gave Chuck a soft kiss. She couldn't believe it. Chuck knew who she was, and she got the stay anyway. Her mom… she wasn't ready for anyone to know about that. She started to roll more completely on Chuck, but found herself deposited on the other side of the bed with the blanket over her head.

Ellie had walked in. Chuck was even faster than she probably could have been, and _she_ was the one who was supposed to protect _him_. Although, hiding Chuck in his own room made no tactile sense, and Ellie wasn't a threat.

I did make Sarah wonder, though. A couple days after Chuck and her cover relationship was established, when them broke in and inspected the entire apartment for safety. Chuck didn't have a porn stash. He had to have experience hiding something.

Sarah found the whole situation really funny. She was a little startled when Ellie, sitting on the bed, said, "And now you're here with a big girl. Hi, Sarah." The last part was directed to the blanket that was 'hiding' her. So much for the bad hiding place.

Sarah peeked over the covers. Chuck had the blanket pulled to his chin. Devon came in from his position at the doorway and escorted Ellie out of the room. He said, "Carry on." He was shirtless, his normal, of course.

Sarah was certain there was no chance of them carrying on. Something was wrong with Ellie. The Bartowskis talked a lot, but not _that_ much. She grabbed her cell phone and dialed Casey, "We have a development in today's mission. There's a problem with Ellie. After the poison victim we encountered last night, that's two strange occurrences in two nights. Come over with your scanner. Two minutes is fine instead of one. Chuck and I have to put on clothes.

* * *

_**The next evening**_

Sarah laid in bed with Chuck, listening to his breathing as he slept, her feet tangled with his to keep warm.

Everyone was safe, and Chuck, under the effects of truth serum, told her he loved her. She didn't say it back, but from how she reacted, kissing him for all he was worth, he had to know. She simply wasn't ready to say the words. That didn't mean she didn't feel them. Well, she supposed that was what she felt. She had never been in love. She didn't know she was capable. It had to be love.

Those three words were what Chuck needed to hear. Sarah wanted to share all of herself, first. Chuck knew about her dad, but not her mom and the baby. Even the CIA didn't know about her mom. She supposed her dad could find her mom next year when he got out of prison. Her grifting parent was good at finding things, though he'd only do that if he wanted an iron thrown at his head, again.

The CIA could _not_ find out about her mom and the baby. A few months ago, Sarah thought she'd never see her again. She found herself considering taking the most important man in her life to meet the most important woman in her life.

Chuck could keep a secret. He regularly kept _all_ of the secrets. She just needed him to understand the seriousness of the situation. It wasn't something he could easily fix by wanting it to be better, but maybe if she wasn't hiding anything from him, she could stop hiding from herself and tell him how she felt.

* * *

A/N: That's the truth, but not the full truth. The full truth might take a little bit.


	8. Marking Her Territory

_Published December 18, 2019_

A/N: Nowadays, important files might be on a desktop computer or on an external drive, but if it's important and on a cellphone, it's most likely in the cloud.

* * *

_**The Sunday before Thanksgiving**_

"Ok, just give me the verdict, Chuck. I can take it."

"You sure you want to hear?"

"If you're teasing me, please stop. If you're not teasing me, don't lie to me."

Chuck held up the repaired cell phone to the short, attractive brunette in front of him. Three months ago, he would have never thought he had a chance with someone like Lou and wouldn't have done anything about it. Now, he wasn't interested, but if he was, he thought it might be possible, based on how she was acting. He said, "Good as new-ish."

"I don't believe you," she said.

Chuck calmly said, "You can learn a lot about a person through their cell phone, by the way. For example, I saw that you listed your nana first, under 'a nana.'"

She pumped her first. "You really saved my ass, Chuck."

"Wow, you love your nana, and you have the mouth of a trucker. You're a complicated woman, Lou."

"I brought you something—for fixing it." Lou handed Chuck a brown paper bag with a box inside.

"Thanks." Chuck shook it lightly. It didn't sound like a sandwich, but he knew she owned the deli shop. "A sandwich?"

"It's _the_ sandwich. Turkey, Munster, egg bread. I'm even gonna call it the 'Chuck Bartowski.'"

"I can't believe you're going to name a sandwich after me." Part of Chuck was extremely flattered. The other part knew he needed to shut this down because she was just a customer, and bringing a sandwich was definitely flirting. The last time someone flirted with him, it was before she broke into his house to steal his computer. A short while later, she became his cover-girlfriend. No need for that again. He was rock solid in that department—which was now a non-cover department.

The sandwich-maker said in a sultry voice, "You know, you should come by the shop sometime and taste it fresh."

Oh boy, that was practically an invite for a date. He needed to be polite, but firm. "This is really a big honor… Sarah!"

Sarah had appeared out of nowhere to rescue him from leading on an unsuspecting woman when he was definitely taken. He didn't hold back, giving her a big, wet kiss. Who cared about PDA when the "public" part had an objective.

Sarah turned to the smaller woman and said, "Hi, Lou!"

The smile that had been on Lou's face disappeared. She pointed to Chuck and said to Sarah, "This is the guy you were talking about?"

She possessively wrapped her arm around Chuck's waist and said, "Yes."

Chuck needed an explanation. "You two know each other?"

Sarah said, "I met Lou a couple weeks ago when I went to get us lunch. You love sandwiches, and her place makes great sandwiches. I had to call-in an order because I didn't want to be in there long." She pointed up and down at her Wienerlicious outfit.

Lou continued, "Right. We couldn't have it getting out that Wienerlicious employees are passing on their free food to go to my deli." Lou per her hand on her hip. "Sarah, I like you a little less than I did yesterday because you've already taken my hero off the market." She pointed at the sandwich. "Chuck, be sure to share that with her." She pivoted and left.

Chuck turned to Sarah and saw daggers coming out at him from her eyes. She was scary with knives, even the metaphorical ones.

She said, "We need to talk." Chuck put the sandwich on the counter. It was even money whether it'd be there when he got back from the home theater room, where Sarah was leading him by the hand. With how mad she looked, he thought there was a non-zero chance he wouldn't be back anytime soon because he'd be in the hospital. He was sure Sarah knew several ways of hurting him without inflicting permanent damage, but he'd still be out of commission.

With the home theater room door shut, Sarah grabbed hold of his Nerd Herder tie and pulled him towards her, giving him a deep kiss. After more than a minute, they stopped, and Chuck said, "Wow. Let me know what to do so we can do that again."

"You better not do that again. I was just checking."

"I don't understand."

"Lou was totally in to you. I assume you led her on."

"No. Of course not. At least I didn't mean to. I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to attracting women. If not for an email with stolen secrets, I wouldn't have met you. You'd probably be someplace like Paraguay, quelling a revolution with a fork."

Sarah gave a twisted smile and said, "I don't know about a fork. Maybe a butter knife. That doesn't matter. I'm happier here with you."

Chuck rambled some more. "I thought Lou might be flirting, and I was trying to figure out how to let her down easy, saying I'm already with the _best_ woman. I'm not adept at flirting, receiving or giving, so I wasn't sure what to do. She did name a sandwich after me, so I didn't want to be too mean. I'm _really_ happy you showed up."

Chuck started to lean in, but Sarah backed off and put a hand on his chest to stop him. When Chuck got the picture that he was still in trouble, Sarah moved in and gave him a quick peck. She still didn't look happy, but there was hope.

Chuck asked, "What should I have done differently?"

Sarah answered, "Stop being so nice to everyone."

"What? How? I'm in a customer support job. I'm supposed to be nice."

Sarah frowned, "Maybe we need to make you less cute at work. I fell for you when you were being a technology hero. I don't want to deprive everyone else, leaving them to the rest of your minions. I don't know. Maybe taming the curls." She brushed her hand through Chuck's hair.

Chuck smiled. He knew Sarah was being the unreasonable one, which was a change, since he was normally the one freaking out. He leaned in again. This time Sarah fully accepted.

When they parted, Sarah said, "You need to be careful about Lou, and not only because she likes you more than she's allowed. The day before yesterday, when I was picking up an order, I flashed on a flyer on her bulletin board for the Aries Club. It's run by Dmitri Stavros."

That name caused Chuck to flash.

Sarah said, "You too?"

"Yeah. What are we going to do about that? Aren't we supposed to do something about all flashes?"

"You're supposed to tell Casey or me. We only are to do something to protect national security, or I guess in one case, to test a potential field agent. I did some checking. The rumor is his father's organization smuggles girls—"

"Then we definitely need to do something," Chuck said with conviction.

"Actually, we don't."

That concerned Chuck. Sarah wasn't doing anything about a flash. He thought he knew Sarah better than that.

She said, "This is why I didn't tell you. If we report this, human trafficking groups in the FBI get involved. They already know about Stavros, Sr. They'll want to know where we got actionable intelligence. We can't give them any hint about the Intersect."

Chuck frowned. He knew Sarah had secrets, but he didn't think she'd hide something from him like this.

Sarah sighed. "You're upset. I was _definitely_ right not to tell you. You're still new as a field analyst. We have to run things by Graham first. I did report this to him, and he the one who said we aren't to trust the FBI. We know of Bryce, Zarnow, and Flemming as three people working for the CIA and NSA that were dirty. We don't know how far this goes, who in the FBI might be a traitor, too."

"So we let Stavros continue to get away with it?" Chuck was really concerned now.

Sarah held Chuck's hands in hers. "I was going to talk to you after work. There's not much we can do right now without revealing ourselves. I even staked out the docks the last two nights."

Chuck was confused. That sounded like she had been doing _something_. That isn't what he thought she had been doing, even before he knew about the flash. "That's why you were 'busy?' You really were working? I noticed you've been tired and thought you were going back to your bed at night because it's more comfortable."

"No. I sleep better with you. I was doing things like breaking into their office by the docks and cloning their hard drive."

The confusion was replaced with concern. "Without back-up?"

"Casey was there. I told him I flashed. He doesn't know about the rumors. He thought we were being thorough and jumped at the chance to work without, I quote, 'the rookie.' He said something about you working open-shifts. Personally, I think he's a little intimidated about his new cover-superior and new fully-employed-by-the-Federal-government coworker."

"I was working opens." He _knew_ she wouldn't just let it drop—let a human trafficker get away with it. "What did you find?"

Sarah pulled a flash drive from her pocket. Chuck immediately took in and hooked it up to the computer connected to the room's TV. After half a minute, he said, "I'm in."

"Already?"

Chuck didn't look through all of the hard drive contents. He used it to figure out what to hack and quickly had a live connection to the smuggler's computer. He loaded a ledger. "Here, it looks like the next cargo container of people comes in tomorrow night." He scrolled to a different next page in the spreadsheet. "They'll smuggle anything. It says last week they brought in a shipment of 'desk friends' and 'bath friends.'"

Sarah leaned in close and put her hand over Chuck's on the mouse. She scrolled the sheet to the right and said, "This says they have mini-video cameras attached. Those would be for spying on people at work and in the shower. The NSA won't like the idea of someone else conducting surveillance on unsuspecting Americans. That's something we can use to take action. If we time it when the container with people shows up, we can stop both at the same time. Good job, Chuck!" She kissed him on the cheek.

Chuck felt better in the inside. Sarah wasn't saying not to do anything. She was holding off on something that wouldn't be approved until she found something they could move on.

He moved the keyboard to the side and wrapped his arms around Sarah holding her close. A few seconds later, they laid together on the sofa making out. Chuck pushed off and said in a pained voice, "We have to stop. I don't want someone finding us here. That might make someone like Fernando think this was the place to bring a girl."

Sarah groaned and said, "That's a disturbing thought, but you're right. The container comes in at 9 PM tomorrow night. Let's talk to Casey and get a raid set up. After we're done there, we'll head back to my place. I need my feet warmer. Together, we can try this bed you say might be more comfortable."

"Sounds like a plan."

* * *

_**The next night**_

In the back of a surveillance van by the docks, Casey grunted loud enough for his two companions to hear. Chuck was right. A few days before, he told her they need a dictionary to distinguish the grunts.

"What's wrong, Casey?" Chuck said with too much cheer for a real question. "This is where I'm going to be spending most of my time as a field analyst supporting you two. I've been told it's the safest place by someone who is an excellent spy."

Casey grunted again in response.

Sarah silently and slowly nodded very dramatically in agreement to Chuck's statement that it was safe in the van. Sarah thought it was ironic. When Chuck was being tested to be an analyst, he was often out of the van, more than she liked. Now that Chuck was a full member of the team, Casey and she were in the van with him, instead of the other way around. No need to push it. She said, "Don't antagonize him, Chuck."

"Do you think he'd rather be shooting someone or something?" Chuck asked.

"Probably so," Sarah replied. "Is it ok if I asked him to the thing?"

"Of course."

In the back of the van, they had audio feeds turned down and two screens showing live video footage from a couple body cameras. The NSA-lead FBI tactical team spread out through the docks, converging on two separate targets. The first was the large shipping container of girls that had just arrived from Asia. The second had equipment that someone was going to use to spy on who knows what civilians.

Sarah said to Chuck, "I didn't want to presume. It's not my home."

"Presume away. I've been explicitly told by my sister you're allowed to be there as much as you want. I only have two concerns." Chuck held up a finger. "One, right before the mission, Ellie told me she was going to ask my co-worker, her neighbor, to Thanksgiving dinner herself. Casey can't let Ellie know he's already been asked because for all my sister knows, I'm just out with you, and Casey won't see us tonight. She can't know we saw him, for the cover."

Sarah smiled at the challenge for their teammate to maintain the cover. "You hear that Casey? You have to act surprised in front of Ellie. Surely you can managed that. What's two?"

"Morgan's coming. At least, I assume he is. He always comes, since we were in high school, even before Ellie started cooking a turkey herself. I'm pretty sure Morgan will be alone."

"I thought he was with Anna," Sarah said.

"They broke up last weekend. He said after Carina, his standards are higher. Morgan lamented that Carina didn't live in town and said Anna's a little freaky. He never should have started a relationship with her. Neither Morgan nor Anna is ready.

Sarah sighed. "This whole thing is Carina's fault. Normally she sneaks away more cleanly, but she emailed me the other day that Morgan greatly exceeded her expectations because of his enthusiasm. She said she was half tempted to come to visit after her next mission. She must have given Morgan some kind of verbal review and built up his ego.

Sarah continued, "Morgan and Anna were a strange pair, anyway. Ready for a real relationship or not, your best friend is too good for either Anna or Carina. Despite his oddities, he's extremely loyal and a good friend."

Chuck said, "I just hope the drama of the fall-out stays out of the Buy More. Jeff has already been going on and on about how it's great that Anna is now free for him."

"That might be worse," Sarah lamented. "Anyway. Casey, what do you think? Would you like to come to Thanksgiving dinner at Chuck's? Ellie's cooking."

Casey grunted again.

Chuck said, "I know that one. That was a yes. With holiday cheer planned, I don't understand what his problem tonight might be now."

Casey finally spoke in words. "We're not here because of a flash. Chuck, you had to find some reason to save non-US citizens from being exploited by other mostly non-US citizens who happen to be living in our country. You had Walker sneak tech into bad guy's offices to find dirt that is outside of our mandate."

Sarah said, "No. _I_ flashed first. Going after the smuggling operation was _my_ initiative. Chuck didn't know anything. _I_ heard rumors about the slave trade part of the operation. I knew that was outside of our purview, so I didn't tell Chuck about the flash until after I had cloned the hard drive. After I told him enough to make him flash, in mere minutes he found out about the 'friend' devices with cameras. He easily discovered tonight's human cargo container, too. This way, we're solving two problems at once, and we're not jeopardizing the Intersect as the root source because the second target gives us another reason to be here. The FBI will assume we were tracking the illegal surveillance and won't question our involvement. The NSA wouldn't reveal the source, and Beckman will keep any inquiry away from us."

Casey grunted again before saying, "Stopping both things is good, but he's infected you, Walker. You're now looking for problems to solve. And yes, I'd love to have a meal that Ellie prepares. I'll even put up with the bearded troll because I know Ellie will stop him before he becomes too obnoxious."

On the monitors, they saw team two open the large storage container with the spy devices. Team one was still approaching the other large freight container.

Chuck said to Sarah, "I think we need to find Casey a girl. It's not fair for him and Morgan being the only two there without a date."

Sarah said, "I don't know anybody who I don't like well enough to subject to Casey. Also, he _is_ our partner. I'd want him to have a _good_ girlfriend, and I don't know anybody that's good enough for him. High standard both way that are hard to match."

"Maybe another spy?" Chuck suggested, "Not Carina, of course."

Sarah said, "A spy might work, except it'd have to be someone who worked for the United States, and I course I don't mean Carina."

Casey piped up, "I agree it has to be a spy, or someone in something like law enforcement. The last civilian I was with died in a terrorist bomb attack in Grozny. She was actually French. She was better than all of the other people in that country, but not again."

"Oh, I know," Chuck said. "A foreign ex-spy. Maybe a ex-Russian. Nah, that would be mean."

Sarah and Chuck both laughed, but Casey stared off at the wall, not immediately dismissing the idea with disgust.

Team one opened their their target container, liberating about two dozen young women inside. It seemed to Sarah like the three of them didn't need to be there. It was nice seeing a take-down go well for a change. No complications.

Sarah made a decision. Chuck trusted her to find a way to make this mission work. He already knew all of the country's secrets. She wanted him to know all of hers.

She said, "Chuck, take a personal day the day before Thanksgiving. I'm taking you someplace."

"Ugh," Casey said in disgust.

Casey had figured out it wasn't mission related and was personal, but she wanted to adjust his preconception without telling him where they were really going. She needed a cover story—something that would keep Casey from having a clue about what they were doing, but something that wouldn't make him think they needed to schedule 'alone time.' "Casey, if we wanted privacy, there's my hotel room. This is between the other Intersect and me. I have something for him to do tomorrow after his shift. Then, we're all having dinner together the next day." She added with a condescending tone, "I assume that is ok with you?"

"Whatever," he said in disinterest. "I don't need to know more about how you 'train' the geek." That worked for Sarah except maybe the geek descriptor. The other Intersect—her _nerd_—preferred to be called a nerd instead of a geek. Casey should know better.

Her spontaneous plan was for Chuck to do some hacking, tomorrow. She'd seen enough of what he could do to know he could do what she needed. The next day, they had to pick up some paperwork, then she really was taking Chuck someplace. Casey could think it was whatever training thing he wanted. It was better that he thought it was private but not sexual because he'd be more likely to never bring it up again, rather than use it as a topic for teasing.

Chuck took Sarah's hand, looked into her eyes, and said, "I'll go wherever you want."

That was good. Even Chuck had no idea what she was talking about. He was a lot more trusting now that they were more than a cover. He was so much more than a cover—so much more than a boyfriend. She wouldn't have considered her plan otherwise. He was the one person with whom she wanted to share herself completely.

* * *

A/N: Desk friends and bath friends with embedded camera? What are those? The actor who played Yari Demitrios also played "Lucky Leon" in _Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman_, 2x16. Lucky Leon was trying to distribute all-in-one organizers that had spy cameras embedded inside.

There's no Ghost of Christmas Past in this one (or a ghost of Thanksgiving Past). In this alternate universe, Casey is a more lethal shot, and Bryce really is very dead. His ashes ended up in a landfill. Casey verified the autopsy report and tried to mess with Sarah's head by sharing gruesome details. She was mad enough at Bryce for indirectly causing the Intersect to be put into her and Chuck's heads that Casey's plan didn't go as expected. Sarah was satisfied with what happened and thanked him.


	9. The Intersect Couple vs the Baby

_Published December 19, 2019_

A/N: Sarah has a plan. It has nothing to do with the show's 2007 Thanksgiving plans.

* * *

_**The day before Thanksgiving**_

Sarah parked her Porsche in front of a white house with a picket fence in a quiet neighborhood in Glendale. Chuck didn't know what they were doing there. She hadn't revealed a thing.

He refrained from asking, wondering if the last two days were some sort of CIA test. His first paycheck—one a lot larger than he was expecting—had cleared, so he thought they were past tests.

The day before, Sarah had him hack into several agencies and make a fake birth certificate, back-dated three months, along with adoption records, back-dated two. It seemed like he was creating a false identity for someone. Sarah was very specific on the hair and eye colors and the name. Earlier that morning, they stopped at a government building to pick up the fake paperwork he had created.

He always figured the CIA had people for that sort of thing. For Sarah, Casey, and Chuck, someone else always created the fake identities for missions. The closest he came was putting the Sarah Carmichael identity in an employee directory. He never expected they'd need to create a fake identity for a baby.

Sarah knew what she was doing, though. She told him what was needed, and where to go. She said she had researched but wanted a computer expert to make sure they got the job done without a problem. For all intensive purposes, this one was official.

Not making any move to get out of the car, Sarah grabbed Chuck's hand and squeezed. "We're here," she said with a relieved sigh, almost like it was difficult to get there.

Chuck gave Sarah a moment to explain, but she seemed content to just hold his hand. None of this made sense to him. He finally asked, "Where are we?"

Sarah answered, "This is where my mom lives."

That was possibly the last thing he expected. Chuck knew about Sarah's dad being in prison because she told him, but she never broached the subject of her mom. He had thought it might be worse. Considering his messed up family history, he wasn't about to push. He never expected Sarah's mom to be someplace "normal" like a quiet, suburban house.

He suddenly realized something. He had assumed the address that he put on the adoption papers was some fictional address for a cover. It wasn't. It was the address of the house where they were currently parked.

"You've figured it out," Sarah said. "Yes, there's a baby in that house. I left her here two days before I met you."

Chuck wrinkled his forehead. It didn't make sense. "But you said when you renewed your Depo shot three weeks ago that it had been eleven weeks since your last one. We haven't known each other that long. The timing isn't right for three months."

"The baby's not mine." Sarah squeezed hard on Chuck's hand. "What I'm about to tell you is the most secret thing I know—more secret than the fact that many secrets our in our heads. Five people know about that. I'm the only person that knows the full story here. My mom knows only part of the story. Graham might suspect a different part of it, but he doesn't know I've ever been here." She leaned over, opened the glove compartment and pulled out a small electronic device that had been disconnected from the car. It was on, though.

Sarah explained, "It currently says we are parked at my hotel. That means no one, not even the No Secrets Agent we work with knows where were are."

It suddenly made sense why Sarah took his watch off when they were getting dressed that morning. For a moment, Chuck thought they were starting round two, but she apologized and said she wished they had more time.

Regarding the car, he pointed out, "We're still on traffic cameras."

"Someone would have to know where and when to look. There's a guy with a black 2005 Porsche 911 Carrera who lives in this neighborhood, a model only two years older than this one, so you'd really have to pay attention.

"If it's really important, I could go through video records and scramble any license plate images," Chuck offered.

"You can do that? Yes. That would be great. It's important that no one knows about this. Lives depend on it."

That sounded serious—more serious than most of what they did, and that was saying something. "How many times did you come here before they stopped using tapes for backup about five years ago?"

Sarah said, "This is only the third time I've been here since my mom moved here—all of them in the last five years. I know the times within a half hour."

That was specific. "That'll make it easier. Why am I committing this small felony?" Chuck figured Sarah had a good reason, but he wanted to know why.

"That baby you made the adoption papers for… they're to keep her safe." Sarah stopped and looked like she was fortifying herself, getting up the nerve to explain, so Chuck didn't push.

"On my last mission before I came to Burbank, Graham tasked me to work with a handler I hadn't worked with before. The mission went badly because it wasn't a real mission. My handler was trying to steal money to retire."

Chuck said, "The CIA has a problem with rogue agents. I'm lucky I got a good one. What did this guy do?"

"This handler told me a group of thugs killed a family. That was true. I was to get what he called 'a package.'"

"What's this bad handler's name, or do we need to keep calling him that?"

"I don't want to say his name in case you flash. If there was anything in the Intersect, it's out of date because I didn't turn in my mission report until the night before we met, your birthday, the same night Bryce destroyed the Intersect lab, so the Intersect couldn't have information this handler went rogue and left the agency. If you flash it might be for anything good he did as an agent, because Graham hadn't had a chance to scrub his record."

Chuck nodded. "So how big was this group of thugs you had to fight your way through?"

"Around twelve. I didn't count as I was shooting everyone."

"Twelve!? Why would this guy send you in by yourself? Didn't you have people helping?"

Sarah shrugged. "I have a reputation as 'Graham's enforcer.' Going in there was no big deal. Actually, I was in a rush and didn't kill everyone the first time I went through the main room, so I had to eliminate them when I was leaving, wearing a papoose."

Chuck said with amazement, "I knew you were incredible, but I had no idea. I am so lucky we're on the same side. Why did you have a papoose?"

"The _baby_ was the package. The mobsters killed the parents. The handler was going to try to use the baby to steal her inheritance, maybe pretending to be her guardian or doing something worse. After revealing him as a traitor, I called Graham. He said the baby's safety couldn't be guaranteed. I told him there was no baby. Graham might have suspected something, but he definitely didn't want to press the issue."

Chuck squeezed her hand three times and gave her the chance to continue. Sarah said, "I used a contact in Eastern Europe who owed me a favor to verify the baby has no living relatives. She just needs to be kept safe and hidden so the rogue agent won't go after her. I took the baby to the safest place I know: the place I've often wished I hadn't run away from to stay with my conman dad. I took her to my mom. My mom can give her the normal childhood I should have had."

"Wow. You're a hero above and beyond what anyone knows. Since this is so secret, why are we here?"

"Chuck, I want to know _everything_ about me. When I reported in after the mission, Graham said the CIA often loses good agents when something like this happens. He said I'd no longer get handlers, which means I'd be on teams, like I was several years ago when I worked with Carina and a couple other agents, or I'd work under his direct supervision. Now you know part of why I never wanted to be _your handler_. My last experience with one went badly, and suddenly, I was one."

Chuck wrinkled his forehead, "Are you sure I should meet your mom?"

"Did I ever think I would see my mom again after bringing the baby here? No. Am I sure about this? No. Do I want you to meet my mom? Yes. You've shared me with your wonderful sister. I want to do the same with my mom, even though we can't tell anyone. Despite my dad, my mom is normal. Introducing the most important man in my life to the most important woman in my life is important to me."

Chuck leaned across the car and gave Sarah a soft kiss. "Let's go meet your mom."

* * *

At the red front door, Sarah knocked. A woman she never thought she'd see again opened the door and didn't say anything as she stared at Sarah. Her eyes become wet.

"Hi, mom."

Her mom looked to Chuck. "What's wrong? I thought I never…"

Sarah tried to let her know that Chuck was not a problem. "It's ok. Mom, this is my boyfriend, Chuck. Can we come in?"

She shocked her mom with the word 'boyfriend.' Having missed Sarah's high school years, she probably never thought Sarah would bring a boyfriend home to meet her—not that Sarah had a boyfriend to bring home back then. The stunned woman composed herself and pointed a thumb over her shoulder. "Maybe that's not a good idea."

Sarah said, "He knows _everything_. I trust him with _everything_. The three of us are the only people who know."

Her mom invited them inside. They all sat in the living room—Sarah next to Chuck on the loveseat sofa and her mom in a wing-back chair. Chuck placed a letter envelope on the coffee table in between them.

The room was immaculate, as if her mom had cleaned that morning. There was no sign of the baby. If it hadn't been for the cryptic thumb point, Sarah would be worried. Her mom stood up and said, "Can I get you two anything? Ice tea? It'll be a couple years before Kool-Aid makes a comeback in my fridge. The tea isn't half bad. When Sarah was here—the first time, before you-know—she three glasses."

Chuck pleasantly smiled and said, "Iced tea would be great, ma'am."

"Oh no, ma'am won't do."

Chuck blushed and quickly said, "I didn't mean to offend. I know you aren't a Walker or a Burton, and I don't know if that name is real." Chuck pointed to the envelope on the table. He probably didn't know for certain the adoption papers' information was as correct as it could be. They were as real as they could be.

"Emma," she gently said. "You can call me Emma."

Chuck smiled, and she left. Sarah moved closer to Chuck so her side was completely pressed against his, two hands circling his bicep. "Relax, Chuck. You don't have to be overly polite. This isn't a 'meet the parent' test. You're already my choice or you wouldn't be here. I have four important things in my life. You, the thing in our heads, and two things I cut myself off from as much as possible: my jailbird dad and this. I want you to know all of me."

After the glasses of tea were put in front of Chuck and Sarah, Chuck took a drink, but Sarah didn't let go of Chuck's arm to take her glass. Her mom asked, "What's wrong?"

Sarah said, "Part of my job is to protect Chuck. There's no threat here, but I find myself really liking have two hands wrapped around his arm."

Sarah's mom laughed. "Six months ago, you said your boyfriend worked with you. I didn't realize you were his bodyguard."

Chuck said to Sarah, "You told her about Bryce?"

Her mom said, "Bryce was his name? You're not Bryce? I don't understand."

She said, "Different boyfriend. I've known Chuck for two months. I really liked my last boyfriend back when I was dating him, but I didn't have much to compare him against. He was another agent, but I never completely trusted him. I was right to not trust him because he went rogue. Now, I'm with Chuck. He not just a good person. He's the best."

Her mom nodded, like she was trying to follow. From the expression on her face, she wasn't. "So now you're with your new partner, another agent?"

"No," Sarah quickly said. "Chuck is not an agent. I'm on a three person team. Two agents and Chuck. He's our technical support, and he's a genius."

Her mom clarified, "I just mean you are dating people from work. I don't know how this works. Chuck knows about your ex-boyfriend?"

Chuck, who had been looking more comfortable than she felt, was suddenly stiff. Sarah knew she had to handle it.

"Chuck probably knew Bryce better than I ever did. They roomed together at Stanford. Bryce framed Chuck for cheating, got him kicked out of school, and then stole his girlfriend at the time. Chuck didn't challenge the betrayal, which we have definitively proven was a false allegation. Later, when Bryce did things the CIA cares about, I was sent to find out if Chuck was in on it because of their past relationship. He wasn't, of course, but there were reasons to keep Chuck safe so he was classified as an asset." Sarah rocked into her boyfriend as a playful signal that all was ok. She continued. "After protecting him a few weeks, we discovered how brilliant he is. He became an official part of the team, instead of just a civilian asset. The two of us have been together ever since. He knows what I do, which most people with the agency don't even know, and I trust him—enough to be here. We're here because I want him to know everything about me. The only people that know we're here are in this room."

Sarah's mom simply stared in surprise. She slowly smiled, but looked like she was going to cry again. Before she could, the sound of a different kind of crying emanated from the other room. She popped right up and excused herself to see to the noise.

With Chuck and Sarah alone, Chuck quietly said, "Working for the CIA, what are we allowed to say? I don't know. You indicated the CIA doesn't even know about her, but I don't know what she can know."

"Not the Intersect, of course," Sarah softly answered. "She knows I do black ops for the CIA, but she doesn't know anything else. She knows the baby is from a mission that went sideways. She knows that everyone thinks the baby died in some country overseas and that the CIA doesn't know that she is my mom. She can know my boyfriend is in the CIA, because that's like knowing I'm in the CIA. We've got each other's backs, which will mean she'll worry less. It'd be the same with Ellie. It's safer for her not to know anything because the reason I came into you life to so top secret, but if she did somehow find out about one of us, she'd be told about both of us so she'd know we always have each other's backs."

Two ladies reentered the room: Sarah's mom and an infant only a few months old. Sarah brought her hands to her chest. She could barely believe that both her mom and the baby were safe and were in the same room as her.

"Would you like to hold her?" Sarah did say anything but felt herself slowly nod.

With the baby in Sarah's arms, the infant was a little fussy. Sarah slowly rocked her and began to softly sing the same lullaby she sang months ago, when she called her mom for help to calm the baby down. She looked up and saw both her mom and her boyfriend weren't bothering to fight off tears. The baby stilled and nestled closer to her warmth.

Her mom said, "Not to pressure, but you and Chuck could take her."

"No," Sarah cut off the suggestion before it could be finished. "If she were with me, the wrong people might find out about her. Chuck lives in an apartment with his sister and her boyfriend. They are wonderful people, both doctors, but they don't know we work for the CIA. This angel needs to be raised by someone who can be there for her. Chuck, show her the papers."

Chuck handed her mom the envelope he had set down earlier. She opened it, and her mouth dropped open. "Is this what I think it is?"

Sarah continued gently rocking the small baby in her arms—Molly. Chuck summarized the contents. "Those are adoption papers and a substitute birth certificate. Sarah forged your signature on the copy we filed downtown. She even got a fake notary seal before we took them in."

Sarah said, "They need to stand up to scrutiny, not that there ever should be any."

Chuck continued, "There's also an adoption birth certificate."

Sarah added, "The original one is overseas in some official government records. We don't ever need to get that. Getting it might send off the wrong signals, but if we decide it'd be useful in seventeen years, Chuck and I can get it."

"You and Chuck, huh? You'll be together then?" Her mom had a small teasing smile.

Sarah had slipped up saying that, but she might as well say the truth as she saw it. "I don't see why we wouldn't be." She looked to Chuck, and he didn't flinch. If anything, his eyes were shining, looking at her with Molly. She didn't expect all of the tears that had come from this reunion, but she wasn't surprised.

Sarah's mom continued reading the papers. "These are amazing. They almost seem real. I didn't know what I was going to do to apply Molly to preschool."

Sarah said, "They're as real as they can get. I said Chuck's a genius. He got into the system so no one knows and produced _real_ documentation."

"This says Molly is your sister."

Sarah said, "What do you mean? Oh. I suppose so. You started raising me, and you are doing it again with Molly. That makes us sisters."

They just set quietly looking at Sarah holding her sister. After a couple minutes, Sarah said with reluctance, "We do need to go."

Her mom asked, "After today, are you going to see your sister and me again?"

"I hope so. I had to disable the tracking device in my car. Chuck is going to help scrub traffic cameras. We can't go off-the-grid often. It's definitely too risky to come again anytime soon, like the holidays this year. I hope sometime next year."

Her mom smiled and said to Chuck, "I know she will keep you safe, but please keep my daughter safe."

"That's what we do. We watch out for each other."

They all stood. Sarah continued to hold Molly as she watched her mom give Chuck a strong hug. Then she handed Molly off to Chuck so she could hug her mom. Over the last couple months, Sarah had learned what a family hug should be like from her boyfriend's sister. The only thing she had to be careful of was to not crush her mom too hard.

After a minute, she finally let go, and then her heart stopped when she looked at Chuck holding her baby _sister_. They _definitely_ needed to go. Her heart could only handle so much.

Sarah and Chuck got into the car. Chuck waved out the window as they left. She didn't look back because if she did, she thought she might not leave and as a result, blow the secret.

Back on the expressway, Chuck got a text message from Ellie. Her message said there was a marshmallow problem at the stores. The delivery truck was in an accident or something. She and Devon had gone to three grocery stores buying supplies for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone was out.

Sarah told Chuck that they could fix it, if he could find a warehouse with white, sugary sponges in a bag. Chuck told Sarah they were taking a detour, and he furiously worked away on his phone.

When Sarah pulled to a stop by a dilapidated building in an unoccupied warehouse complex, Chuck said he had dropped security. Sarah walked over to the door and picked the lock. Six minutes later, she walked out with a bag of marshmallows. She would have been out in four minutes, but Chuck insisted they leave a note with a ten dollar bill to pay for the proffered bag.

Sarah drove back to Chuck's place having accomplished a Thanksgiving miracle of visiting her mom and sister and delivering the all-important sweet potato toppings. Chuck's place was for all practical purposes her home. The holiday was saved, and there was enough time for Chuck and her to have some "quality time" before dinner. She couldn't remember a better day.

In Chuck's room, he spent two hours on the computer hacking into traffic control and scrambling the license plate images of her car. He was a machine, fixing the license plate images from her previous trips to her mom's. He said it felt so much better doing his part to make sure Sarah's sister was safe. Sarah was relieved the final part of her past hadn't scared away her perfect boyfriend.

When they were finally in bed, it was well after 1 AM. Sarah had to say it. "I love you, Chuck."

They didn't go to sleep for a while. If anything, Sarah thought that day might be better than the day before.

* * *

A/N: No Swedish bikini team for a Thanksgiving miracle here, but that's Morgan's wish for the next year anyway.

Only one more chapter. I'm sorry if there was some confusion about possible side-effects of Sarah having the Intersect. She's _not_ at risk for losing her memory. In my head canon, which I've had since the show was on the air, overheating and memory loss were side effects of the architectural changes they made for the Intersect 2.0 to add skills. In this story, Chuck and Sarah has the 1.0. She can't _easily_ jump off bridges onto moving trucks and cars, Matrix-style, but her brain won't melt. She _might_ be able to jump between moving cars and can still intercept flying sharp objects by throwing an ax, but that's all her.

If you like "Chuck vs the Baby" fics, I wrote two canon-compatible one-shots when the show was still on the air:

"Sarah vs the Phantom Retcon" - set before the first episode  
"Sarah's Mom vs Sarah's Family" - insert into "Chuck vs the Baby"

I hope you enjoy those and Episode IX tonight.


	10. It's a Christmas Movie

_Published December 20, 2019_

A/N: The third trilogy is over. Now what? How about the end of _this_ story? No Skywalkers rising here. Just Sarah Walker.

_The sun is shining, the grass is green_  
_The orange and palm trees sway_  
_There's never been such a day_  
_In Beverly Hills, L.A._  
_But it's December the twenty-fourth_  
_And I am longing to be up North_

_I'm dreaming of a white Christmas._

They are in Echo Park, a neighborhood of LA, but this story's Christmas will _not_ be White. The good news is fluffy powder is not required for in fluffy stories.

* * *

_**Christmas Eve, 2007**_

Sarah snuggled closer to Chuck in a chair in his living room. The chair was designed for one person, but with Sarah's flexibility, two large people were not a problem. She said, "If we were both wished into a corn field, it might be ok as long as we were together."

Chuck didn't know what to say to that. He figured if he was with Sarah, she'd protect him, so he would be ok.

Ignoring fictional possibilities, he really liked where she was sitting. There were other seats, but none that close. During their _Twilight Zone_ marathon, Ellie and Awesome had the couch. Morgan took most of the floor. Sarah led them to this seat even before the more spacious places were occupied.

Ellie turned off the video and switched the screen back to a fake fireplace. She said, "Sarah, don't engage in sci-fi talk. The next thing we know, Chuck will be talking about the best way to control a kid who lives in the Twilight Zone."

Chuck stuck out his tongue at his sister, but Sarah turned his head towards her and used her mouth to put his tongue back in place. Since they had been non-cover/official, Sarah had restrained herself at the Buy More Plaza and when they were working for their government jobs, but at home, all consideration for his reluctance towards PDA was gone. She said once that this home was not public, so she was going to express all the affection she wanted. Any argument he had died with her mouth on his.

Sarah somehow balanced while leaning forward in the chair to retrieve their mugs of eggnog. Most of the drinks were "enhanced" the normal way. No one had a chance of mistakenly taking Morgan's, which was enhanced with his favorite purple liquid. It was disgusting, but a compromise after several people vetoed shots of caffeine in a can that might give him wings.

Morgan, wearing and elf hat with a bell and red shoes with curled points, distributed presents.

Chuck was fairly certain Sarah was heart-warmed. He pulled the Afgan more fully over them, just in case. Ellie has been smiling all day. It wasn't just about him and Sarah. She seemed to be right where she wanted to be. It was the most he remembered her smiling with Morgan in the room. It was wonderful being around family for the holidays. All of these people were his family.

Earlier, he had pressed the alert button on his watch to make sure Casey came over to receive Christmas wishes from everyone. The Major was thrilled with the gift of the new Ken Burns WWII documentary box set. He would be camped in front of the TV watching DVDs for the rest of the day. He couldn't be happier.

The five people who stayed all started opening gifts at the same time. Chuck, Ellie, and Devon were all of the mind to take turns, but a couple years ago they decided to not bother trying to restrain Morgan. Ellie was finally convinced after watching Gremlins as a Christmas movie and the idea of Chuck's bearded best friend staying up after midnight. Of course he'd eat if he was up too late.

Everyone was thrilled with their gifts.

Devon and Ellie's gifts to each other were not a surprise to anyone because it was an early, joint gift. They had been watching _Twilight Zone_ episodes on the new TV they had purchased after some couple-communication confusion. (Also known as 'do what the woman wants.') Ellie had said that Chuck's use of his employee discount, his expert install, and the complimentary support plan were enough from him.

Chuck didn't consider that enough. He, Sarah, and Morgan all got together and gave the two of them a weekend away in Santa Barbara. Sarah was happy she got to give them something. Between her salary and Chuck's new salary, the cost of the trip was not a problem. Morgan said the gift was too big because he couldn't possibly afford an equal portion, but Chuck suggested Morgan's contribution be a solemn promise not to harass them about the trip in any way and to help load the luggage from the car. He knew Ellie would assume Sarah paid for most of it. They all assumed, from her car, Sarah came from money. That was just as well. Ellie didn't need to know about Chuck's new income stream.

Morgan made out well. From Ellie, he got a "coupon" book for weekly meals in which she cooked. When the idea was suggested, Ellie said he'd be there anyway. That fact didn't matter to Morgan. He thought it was the best gift ever. Devon got him a year-long subscription to the _Teen Titans_ comic book.

Sarah and Chuck went in together on another gift, this one for Morgan. At first, he was confused, since Morgan already knew about the ComicCon tickets he and Chuck had purchased. Morgan was concerned because of ComicCon International's extremely strict rules about transferring passes. He didn't think anyone could buy them from another source. Chuck assured him they were genuine four-day passes. Morgan didn't need to know that the CIA had half a dozen four-day passes on reserve so they could send agents, as needed. Sarah got a CIA director to pull some strings. She and Chuck wouldn't even have to work unless something went wrong, in which case they would have been sent to San Diego anyway. Chuck was just glad it wasn't suggested he hack past their security checks. It would've been significantly harder than a bank in the Grand Caymans.

Chuck and she also booked two hotel rooms for three nights.

Casey would be going, too, added security for the two human Intersects. His room was his problem. He'd probably want to go as himself, thinking it would be ok if he went as John Casey, but they'd make sure he had a costume. Morgan wasn't to know he was there. Chuck floated the idea of Casey covertly going in a Darth Vader costume. Sarah thought they should have another idea, in case the idea of Casey as the Dark Lord didn't fly.

Morgan didn't know about the potential of Vader. That didn't matter. He was excited anyway. He might be the shortest Wookie there, but he was thrilled about going with _both_ Han and Leia.

Chuck was very happy with the gifts he received. He thought the best gift was perched on his lap, but that didn't count. With the presents he unwrapped, he felt positively spoiled.

Ellie and Devon gave him a new suit. After taking Sarah on a date wearing his dad's old suit, Ellie thought he needed one that fit him better.

Morgan gave him Call of Duty 4. It came out in November, but Chuck always played it at the store. This way he could play it with Morgan at his own apartment. When Sarah asked if it was a _good_ game, Morgan tried to be magnanimous as he told Sarah she'd realize its greatness after he taught her how to shoot the guns.

Sarah gave Chuck two gifts. The first was a new gold watch. He was sure it had been diverted through the CIA lab to have a locator and an SOS alert button added, though they were hidden so no one could see. The watch was something he would wear out with Sarah so he wouldn't look like he dressed down.

The other gift was an empty box. Sarah had to explain. A friend of hers (Sarah didn't say the name 'Carina' in front of Morgan) suggested giving him lingerie which she would wear. Sarah decided to wrap what she would actually wear—hence the empty box. She said some nights she'd still wear his T-shirts, but the idea of wrapping those seemed weird, so she went with the choice of nothing.

When everyone was done, they realized Sarah hadn't started unwrapping any of her gifts. She had been so enthralled, getting the Christmas spirit from everyone else, she forgot to participate in the gluttony.

Ellie and Devon gave her one box with three things. First was a jogging outfit. One morning when Devon went out for a run, Sarah had mentioned she could use another outfit to keep at Chuck's. The second thing was a pair of fluffy slippers. That was because of something else Sarah said a different morning when they were having breakfast. She assured Chuck she wouldn't wear the slippers to bed so his services were still needed to keep her feet warm there. The last gift was a key to the apartment. Chuck offered one weeks ago, but Sarah told him it wasn't necessary because she could pick the lock. It meant a lot to her that the other people who lived there were saying she could come and go and she wanted.

Morgan gave her a completely useless gift, but one that Sarah loved. She was incredibly moved by it, getting up and giving him a strong hug. It was a light blue T-shirt with white personalized lettering. On the front it said, "Don't mess with me." On the back: "'cause I'm the best friend's girl."

That left Chuck's gift for Sarah. Chuck had been excited about this one for a week. After Ellie heard the idea, _she_ had been excited for a week. Inside a small box was a block pouch. Inside the pouch was a silver charm bracelet. Ellie tried to restrain the beginning of a squeal. Devon, Morgan, and Chuck all had big smiles. Sarah was silent for several seconds. Something was wrong. Everyone was quiet.

A small smile started on Sarah's face. After a few seconds it was bigger than Chuck had ever seen. She looked at Chuck and put her hands on each side of Chuck's face and gave him a solid kiss.

She pulled away with a smack. "Yes, Chuck. I'll marry you."

* * *

Sarah never could remember being so happy. However, something was wrong.

Chuck had stopped smiling. She looked around the room. Instead of smiles, she saw dropped jaws and shocked looks.

_What was the matter? Oh._ "You're weren't proposing, were you?"

Chuck didn't answer. She looked at his lips, which were quivering. She did the best thing to stop that. She kissed him. He kissed back, a little. It was what she expected from a PDA-adverse boyfriend. At least he wasn't still catatonic.

Everyone was still quiet. She decided that she needed to backtrack a little. She shouldn't have accepted something that wasn't being offered. She wanted to find out what the bracelet was. "Tell me about this beautiful bracelet."

Chuck said, "It was something left behind by Ellie and my mom—her charm bracelet. I wanted to give you something special. I—"

"You weren't proposing. I got that. I've never received jewelry from a boyfriend. It was round and from the man I love. I overreacted. I want to always stay with you."

"I want to always stay with you," Chuck quietly said.

"You do? Would you like to me married to me?"

Even more quietly than before, Chuck breathed out, "Yeah."

"That's great. I want to be married to you."

They kissed again.

Ellie spoke up, "Does this mean you two are engaged?"

Chuck and Sarah were still kissing and didn't answer. So much for a fear of PDA.

Morgan said, "How can they be engaged? Chuck didn't give her a ring."

They kept kissing.

Devon said, "I don't know."

They kissed some more. Chuck and Sarah finally stopped.

Sarah raised her eyebrows and left it up to Chuck.

Chuck said, "Sarah and I are engaged!"

Ellie darted across the room, wrapping both Sarah and Chuck in a hug. That was harder than Sarah had ever be hugged, but that was fine with her. She was engaged! Chuck accepted her haphazard, reverse proposal. Ellie was happy. All was right.

After a while, Chuck said, "El. Guys. This has been a Christmas surprise. A great surprise, but a surprise. I think Sarah and I need a minute to talk."

Ellie backed off and said, "Right. Devon. We need to clean the kitchen. Let's go." Devon dutifully followed.

That left Morgan, who still sat on the floor with a confused look on his face. Chuck handed his new game to Morgan and said. "Morgan, I left the Xbox plugged into my TV. Kill everyone. Good luck." Morgan took the box, saluted, and left.

Sarah put the charm bracelet on her wrist with a smile. With the room to themselves, Sarah started the conversation with another kiss to the man she loved. It didn't last too long, but at least the kiss started things well.

Sarah started the talking part of the conversation. "I won't say I'm sorry we're engaged, but I'm sorry I misread that. I know that's not a ring. I let my heart run away with my mouth. I didn't know it could do that."

Chuck spoke extremely quietly so no one besides Sarah could hear. "Are we even allowed to get married...considering the Intersects we have in our heads?"

Sarah said, "Don't worry about that. The CIA has several married couples who work as agent couples. Some of the pairs have even been divorced and remained multiple times. Analyst/agent married couples are fine too. The CIA likes it when spousal loyalty stays in house."

"Does that mean they want us to get married?"

"No. They didn't tell us to get married, and they like to be in control of everything. It just means they'll accept this just like they accepted us being an official couple."

"Should we get married quickly because so they know what to expect?"

"No. We can get married on our schedule. It's not up the government. It's up to us. We haven't been dating long, even if you count the cover-dating time. Neither of us had time to think about this before today. We can get married a month from now, a year from now, or five years from now. All our engagement means it we'll get married _someday_. That's what I want. I want you for the rest of my life."

"I want that, too."

Chuck leaned in, and they softly kissed. They were interrupted by a clearing throat.

They separated and looked to see Devon standing over them with a serious expression.

He exclaimed in a whisper, "Dude! You stole my thunder!"

Sarah stuck up for her man. "This wasn't Chuck's fault. I overreacted, accidentally bringing out what it turns out we both want."

Devon directed his frustration at Sarah. "Now, Ellie might do the same thing. She might propose. I'm not getting my grandmother's ring until I visit my parents next month. I've been waiting to get it until they are back from a holiday cruise in the Caribbean."

Still keeping his voice down, Chuck said, "You want to marry Ellie? That's great!"

Devon said, "I was going to ask for your blessing—"

"You have it." Chuck quickly interjected.

"Thanks. That assumes Ellie doesn't propose first. Assuming she waits for me and accepts, we'll have to wait our turn behind you."

Sarah said, "No you don't. Chuck and I just talked about it. We're in no hurry to officially tie the knot. We're just going to be engaged. It's like we are now, which in my book, is great. We've just promised to one day promise to be together forever. I've already promised and I trust that Chuck feels the same. No reason to change things more right now. You to can go first. No waiting."

Devon looked doubtful and said, "Ok. Please don't ask Ellie to be your maid of honor because that might make her think she can't get married before your wedding so she would still be a _maid_ of honor."

Sarah nodded and squeezed Chuck. "As long as this man is my fiancé, whatever you want."

Morgan came over and interrupted the discussion of hushed voices. "Ellie's still packing up leftovers. She kicked me out of the kitchen. Is it sorted out here? Sarah, are you going to become Mrs. Boss?"

"Mrs. Boss?" Sarah questioned.

Chuck explained, "Morgan has started calling me 'Boss' at work."

Sarah said, "Please don't call me that. Chuck and I are going to get married someday, but I don't need that title."

"Ok. Congratulations you two."

Sarah was happy that Morgan didn't walk up when Devon was talking about his plans to make Ellie Mrs. Awesome. She hoped Morgan didn't start pushing for a wedding to take place soon thinking Carina would come. Sarah wasn't even sure if Carina would be able to be there. Carina didn't generally approve of the idea of real marriages. Fake marriages for a mission, sure, but she had loudly said that commitment was "unnatural."

Ellie cautiously edged back into the room. Chuck said, "It's ok, El. Sarah and I are getting married, _someday_. Not anytime soon, though. This morning we were a happy couple with no end in sight. Now, we are a happy _engaged_ couple with no end in sight. We're not changing anything else. Well, except Sarah has new jewelry and a key that lets her come over whenever she wants.

Ellie came over and gave them both a hug, again. She said, "I'm so happy for you two. Sarah, welcome to the family."

Ellie settled back next to Devon and not-so-innocently asked, "So when are you setting a date?"

Chuck started, "I just said not anytime soon."

Sarah backed him up. "We haven't even discussed if he's getting me a round thing that I put on my finger or if he'll wear a ring I give him because I sort of proposed first. It'll take a while to figure these things out. I'm in no hurry."

Ellie nodded but her face showed teasing suspicion. She changed the subject and asked, "What are we watching next? How about a Christmas movie?"

Morgan said, "We ought to see the _best_ Christmas movie, _Die Hard!_"

Ellie groaned, and Sarah doubtfully asked, "_Die Hard_ is a Christmas movie?"

Chuck strongly confirmed, "Yes, it is."

Devon acknowledged, "Yeah, sort of, but how about something else?"

_A Christmas Story_ and _Christmas Vacation_ were both vetoed by the elder Bartowski. Sarah said 'no' to _Lethal Weapon_, though she didn't know why it was being considered. She didn't want to watch a movie that reminded her of work. Chuck agreed since it had a torture scene that wasn't Christmassy. The settled on _Miracle on 34th Street_—the original one.

* * *

A/N: That's it for another season 1 AU. A sequel has started: "The Intersects vs Flashes". It's set in 2008, the following fall.

I didn't call this chapter "Rise of Bartowski." That might be rushing things. It you want things to rush, read "Chuck vs his Nemesis's Ex."

Thanks to Marc Vun Kannon for inspiring this story in PM comments he made during "Chuck & Sarah vs the Email."

Casey at Comic Con in a Darth Vader costume? Yes. It's funnier than what you are thinking. See "Chuck vs The Sick Girlfriend," which has the original recounting of the what happened. Then there's "Chuck vs The Ewoks," which was posted less than two weeks later, telling more of what originally happened.

If you watched Star Wars IIIIIIIII last night, I hope you enjoyed it. If you're still going to watch it, I hope you enjoy seeing (or re-seeing) the end of the saga. If you are taking a flight somewhere for the holidays, I hope you don't have the Priceline guy sitting next to you ranting about some creature out the window on the wing of the plane. Whatever your situation, have a very merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year!


End file.
